Top Stories: MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, Studio Display XDR, and MoreWhat a week for Apple news! Across Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week, Apple unveiled a total of seven new products, including low-cost iPhone and MacBook options, new displays, and refreshes for the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iPad Air.
Check out our recap with links to all of our coverage from the three days, and read on below for details on each of the new products!
<h2>Top Stories</h2>
<h3>Apple Announces $599 'MacBook Neo' With A18 Pro Chip</h3>
Apple's
budget MacBook is finally here, with Apple itself
leaking the computer's "MacBook Neo" name a day ahead of the official announcement.
The MacBook Neo is the first consumer Mac to be powered by an iPhone chip: the A18 Pro that debuted in 2024's iPhone 16 Pro models. Apple says it is up to 50% faster for everyday tasks than the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5, up to 3× faster for on-device AI workloads, and up to 2× faster for tasks like photo editing.
The MacBook Neo comes in four fun colors and features a 13-inch Liquid Retina display with a 2408-by-1506 resolution, 500 nits of brightness, and an anti-reflective coating. The display does not have a notch, instead featuring uniform, iPad-style bezels.
The $599 price tag does
result in some compromises compared to more expensive Mac laptops, but the MacBook Neo is likely to be a hit with students, those new to Mac, and others shopping on a budget who are just looking for basic capabilities.
<h3>Apple Announces iPhone 17e With A19 Chip, MagSafe, and More</h3>
Apple this week
announced the iPhone 17e, featuring the A19 chip, MagSafe connectivity, faster charging, and more.
The iPhone 17e contains the A19 chip introduced in iPhone 17, featuring a 6-core CPU and a 4-core GPU that make it up to 2× faster than the iPhone 11 that many prospective buyers may be upgrading from. The new 16-core Neural Engine is optimized for large generative models, and the iPhone 17e contains Apple's latest-generation C1X modem from the iPhone Air, delivering up to 2× faster cellular performance than the iPhone 16e.
The iPhone 17e starts at $599 and comes in black, white, and a new soft pink color.
<h3>Apple Unveils MacBook Pro Featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips With New Fusion Architecture</h3>
Turning back to the Mac side of things, this week saw
Apple announce new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models featuring
M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, both built on a new Fusion Architecture that bonds two third-generation 3nm dies into a single chip using advanced packaging.
The Fusion Architecture is a first for Apple silicon, since previous chips used a single-die design. The two bonded dies house the CPU, GPU, Media Engine, Neural Engine, unified memory controller, and Thunderbolt 5 capabilities together.
The new MacBook Pro models also get memory and storage improvements, Apple's N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support, and more.
<h3>Apple Introduces All-New Studio Display XDR: 120Hz, Mini-LED, and More</h3>
Alongside the new Mac laptops, Apple introduced not just one but two new external displays: a
minor revision of the Studio Display and a
higher-end Studio Display XDR that
replaces the Pro Display XDR.
Both new displays measure in at 27 inches and 5K resolution, but the Studio Display XDR features mini-LED backlighting with 120Hz refresh rate and Adaptive Sync, among other upgrades.
The Studio Display is priced starting at $1,599, while the Studio Display XDR starts at $3,299.
<h3>Apple Unveils iPad Air With M4 Chip, Increased RAM, Wi-Fi 7, and More</h3>
Apple's tablet lineup also got an update this week
thanks to a new iPad Air, with key upgrades including Apple's M4 chip for faster performance, an increased 12GB of RAM, Apple's N1 wireless networking chip with Wi-Fi 7 support, and Apple's custom C1X modem in cellular models.
The new iPad Air has the same overall design as the previous-generation model, which was equipped with the M3 chip, 8GB of RAM, and Wi-Fi 6E support.
The new iPad Air is available in the same blue, purple, starlight, and space gray colors as the previous generation, and it still starts at $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch model.
<h3>Apple Announces MacBook Air With M5 Chip and 512GB Base Storage</h3>
Last but not least is the MacBook Air, which was
refreshed this week with the M5 chip and a higher base SSD capacity.
The M5 chip in the MacBook Air features a 10-core CPU, with what Apple calls the world's fastest CPU cores. It offers configurations with up to 10 GPU cores with Neural Accelerators in each core, delivering up to 4× faster performance for AI tasks than the MacBook Air with the M4 chip.
Starting prices for the MacBook Air have increased by $100 to $1,099 for the 13-inch model and $1,299 for the 15-inch model, but that also gets you double the amount of base storage at 512GB as the previous generation. The SSD also has 2× faster read and write performance compared to the previous generation.
<h2>MacRumors Newsletter</h2>
Each week, we publish an email newsletter like this highlighting the top Apple stories, making it a great way to get a bite-sized recap of the week hitting all of the major topics we've covered and tying together related stories for a big-picture view.
So if you want to have
top stories like the above recap delivered to your email inbox each week,
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Top Stories: MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, Studio Display XDR, and More
