The next MacBook Neo could get a RAM upgrade. Yeah, in this economy, no less!
Apple's next MacBook Neo is rumored to pack the A19 Pro chip with 12GB of RAM — a long-overdue upgrade that could finally make the entry-level Mac laptop worth every penny.
Astrong
Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
Apple has never been shy about making you feel the pinch, but here’s a rare piece of good news for your wallet — or at least, for what you’re getting out of it.
According to Taiwan-based tech columnist and former Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan, writing in his Culpium newsletter, Apple is planning to drop the A19 Pro chip into the next MacBook Neo. The same chip that powers the iPhone 17 Pro. And with it comes something Mac users have been grumbling about for years: more RAM. Specifically, a jump from 8GB to 12GB of unified memory.
Yes, really. Apple is finally bumping the base RAM on its most accessible Mac laptop — and no, you don’t have to pay through the nose for a “Pro” suffix to get it.
Why this actually matters more than it sounds
Look, 8GB was already a contentious starting point in 2025, let alone now. Power users and professionals made their feelings known loudly, and Apple — being Apple — mostly shrugged. But the MacBook Neo was always positioned as the entry point into the Mac ecosystem, the machine meant to convert iPhone loyalists into laptop buyers. Shipping it with memory that struggled under modern multitasking was a bit like selling a sports car with a budget tire set.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Moving to 12GB changes that conversation meaningfully. It’s not a revolution, but it’s a genuine quality-of-life upgrade that will make the Neo a more comfortable daily driver — whether you’re juggling browser tabs, editing photos, or running on-device AI features that are only going to grow hungrier.
What you’re not getting, though
Before you start celebrating too hard, pump the brakes on the GPU excitement. Culpan notes that Apple is expected to use a binned variant of the A19 Pro — a 5-core GPU rather than the 6-core version found in the iPhone 17 Pro. The current MacBook Neo also runs a 5-core GPU, so this is less of a downgrade and more of a nothing changes here, move along.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Binning chips is standard industry practice — it’s how Apple manages supply chain yield — but it does mean the Neo remains firmly in its lane, performance-wise. Don’t expect to be rendering 4K timelines on it.
The current MacBook Neo launched to strong sales in early March this year, and its successor is reportedly being lined up for sometime next year. If Apple keeps the price competitive and delivers on the RAM promise, the next Neo might just be the most sensible Mac purchase in a very long time.
Shimul is a contributor at Digital Trends, with over five years of experience in the tech space.
Gemini can now turn your chat into a finished PDF, Word document, or spreadsheet in one tap
For the first time, what Gemini generates and what lands on your device are the same thing. The change makes every professional use case for AI a lot less painful.
I’ve spent a fair share of my time copying Gemini’s outputs into a Word document, reformatting the headers, fixing the spacing, and wondering why AI can’t do this on its own. Fortunately, Google has finally done something that reduces my pain.
Today, Google announced an update wherein the Gemini app can generate downloadable, ready-to-share files directly inside the chat, with no manual reformatting required.
Claude just got a scam detector, and it could save you from a costly mistake
Claude can now tell a scam from the real thing, even when you can't.
Thanks to AI's content generation capabilities, scams are getting harder to detect. According to Malwarebytes' research, 66% of people say it's hard to tell a scam from the real thing. AI-generated scams are becoming so good that even tech-savvy people are getting caught off guard.
The problem is compounded as more and more people start relying on AI for the answers to all their questions. People are increasingly turning to AI browsers and tools like Claude for everyday questions, from what to wear to a function, to which restaurant to try on a trip. It won't be long before those same people ask their AI tools how to stay safe online.
Asus puts the outrageous dual-screen ROG Zephyrus Duo on the shelf at an eye-watering price
The ROG Zephyrus Duo isn't just a gaming laptop with two screens, it's the company’s most serious attempt yet to add more ambition to a "portable workstation" that’s capable of gaming.
Asus has decided that one screen isn’t simply enough on a laptop. The ROG Zephyrus Duo has returned to the market with two screens, with pre-orders now live for what the company is calling the world’s first 16-inch dual-screen gaming laptop.
Starting at $4,499.99 and going up to $5,499.99 for the top configuration, this is undoubtedly a machine that is built for people measuring their laptops with ambition, either for innovation or the desire to game on a dual-screen laptop.
