MacBook Neo

Greetings, we are considering deploying it for our students.  It appears to offer tremendous value for K12 to me.  

Our district has been in talks of iPad VS Chromebook and switching to Chrome. But i have a feeling they will be discussing this as an alternative to the iPad instead of Chromebooks. 

In our (Belgian) market there is a set of schools where an iPad might not offer enough, but fits budget wise and a MacBook Air offers ‘too much’ but doesn’t fit budget wise and I think the MacBook Neo serves those schools perfectly.

at 499$ it is a great alternative for Chromebooks. Yes, those might come in a little bit cheaper, yes. But you get the quality Apple is known for, macOS which is of course is amazing and you can tap into apps like Apple Classroom, Schoolwork and if you’re managing them with Jamf, Student, Teacher, Parent.

if the A18 Pro has enough power (guess we’ll soon figure out) than the Neo will sell very well.

I have been wondering about this myself. At $600 it's very competitive for a MacBook, I don't think the iPhone SiP will be anything that will hold it back in this segment. The one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 type C ports are an interesting choice, but I am figuring its a limit of the SiP and Apple not wanting to repeat the 1x USB-C port of the 12in MacBook as that was not well liked. 

The $100 upgrade to get TouchID and an additional 256gb of storage is honestly a really competitive price for Apple. Though at $700 I think you are getting a bit close to the MacBook Air for your average consumer. Product ladder is laddering.

In any event, this is coming directly after Chromebooks and I think it will make waves in EDU and frontline devices.

edit: I just confirmed it is eligible for the student discount, so its reasonably a $500 device and I also noticed they raised the price of the MacBook Air back to $1100. So yes, this is a highly competitive device, and even the $100 upgrade is very competitive. 

I lacks a backlit keyboard and MagSafe, which again I don't think hold it back at this segment. Me personally I never cared for the return of MagSafe for MacBooks. 

Has JAMF confirmed that the device will be fully manageable by either JAMF Pro or JAMF School?