Nicole Nguyen

The number of the week is $599.

Apple unveiled two, quote, affordable devices this week, a new laptop called the MacBook Neo and a new iPhone called the iPhone 17E, and both cost $599.

Not exactly cheap, but because this is Apple, that's cheap in Apple dollars, but especially for the MacBook Neo.

I was immediately struck by how colorful the new laptops were.

And, you know, colors are just aesthetic and they don't actually like matter to the performance of the machine.

But I think like in the real world, color plays, especially to a younger audience.

And when you use it, it feels a lot like a MacBook Air.

But upon closer inspection, there are some tradeoffs.

So, for example, there's no backlit keyboard.

There are only two USB-C ports, and only one of those ports works with an external display.

There's no quick-release, easily detachable MagSafe charging port, so you have to use up one of those USB-C ports to charge.

There are only two speakers.

It's a smaller screen also.

And so you can start to see where Apple cut corners in order to make that price, $599.00.

which is a huge delta between the $1,099 MacBook Air.

But I think for the kind of person who doesn't care about any of those specs I just mentioned, it could be a really good option and introduce the Mac to the kind of person who would get a low-cost Chromebook or a budget Windows laptop.

So I think that this is the most interesting thing that Apple's put out in a while.

Apple has a long history of super colorful devices, starting with the iMac that had all these different flavors like grape, blueberry, lime.

There was also like a flower power one with a bunch of daisies on it.

And obviously like the iPod mini that came in a bunch of colors.