While it doesn’t have the surround sound of a 5.1 system, CNET notes that this soundbar delivers “impressive sound quality” despite its small size, with better-than-average sound detail for movies and TV shows. While it features modes like Game Mode and Bass Boost, if your primary goal is to use it for music, you may want to look elsewhere. 

The HW-C450 also lacks HDMI connectivity compared to models with multiple inputs, like the Sony HT-CT150. The display features illuminated, touch-sensitive buttons if you don’t want to use the remote (or tend to misplace it), and there’s no need for a wire to connect the included sub, which provides additional low-end punch. 

It’s a sleek and powerful option for a home theater experience, making it a great option for decor-minded buyers looking to beef up their TV and movie-watching experience with style. The slim design fits neatly under TVs without obscuring the screen, and at under $150, now is a great time to invest in the surprisingly bassy Samsung HW-C450 soundbar if you’re on a budget.

Use the Whoop’s strength trainer after (not during) workouts

I’m going to start off with my strongest opinion, and you’re free to disagree: Whoop’s strength trainer is a pain the butt to use during workouts, but you get all the benefits with less hassle if you use it to attach a workout after you finish recording your gym session. 

The Strength Trainer knows what exercises you’re doing, and so it can calculate a “muscular load” for the workout. This is great, because you now get an appropriately high strain score for a hard workout. (Without Strength Trainer, Whoop only uses heart rate data to calculate strain, which of course underestimates your strength workouts.) 

I don’t like using the Strength Trainer during workouts because you have to remember to start and stop each set, and mid-workout editing is annoying. But there is an easier way! Just record an appropriate workout type (like “weightlifting”), and then after your workout Whoop will prompt you to attach a Strength Trainer workout. You select your exercises, fill in your weights, and then Whoop re-processes the workout to give you your new, higher strain score. 

Turn your phone sideways

This is a little Easter egg that you may never discover except by accident. When you’re on the home screen, turn your phone sideways. You’ll see a long, horizontal graph of your heart rate for the day so far, with sleep and workouts highlighted. (You need to have rotation unlocked in your phone settings, of course.) 

Set up a custom weekly plan

The weekly plans are a truly underrated feature of the Whoop app. They give you a way to focus on the firehose of data Whoop can track, turning it into a few simple tasks you can work on throughout the week. If you’re feeling either stumped or overwhelmed when you look at your Whoop app, set up a plan and check on your progress throughout the week. 

If you don’t know where to start, you can choose one of the pre-made plans. For example, the “Feel Better” plan gives you a target for daily steps, suggests meeting a hydration goal four days per week, and doing “any recovery activity” three days per week. All of these parameters are editable, if you’d like to tweak something. 

But you can also set up a custom plan, or ask the Whoop Coach to write you one. The plan can use any combination of Journal answers (“did you hydrate today?”) and data that Whoop gathers (for example, I’m aiming for 65% sleep consistency). I find it more motivating to chip away at weekly targets rather than follow (or ignore) individual recommendations each day. 

Use the “daily outlook” rather than just tapping the Whoop Coach icon

Whoop Coach is the only fitness AI I’m currently on speaking terms with. They all have their flaws, but the Whoop Coach is pretty good about delivering the highlights of your data each day and telling you how you’re doing compared to your weekly goals. 

That said, there are two ways to access Whoop Coach, and one of them is more useful than the other. The way I like to use it is to look for the “daily outlook” button in the middle of the home screen, right under “My Day” and above the timeline. Tap this, and you’ll get a full rundown of what you’ve been doing well lately and where you may want to focus your efforts today. (If I’ve been doing a lot of outdoor workouts lately, I’ll even get a weather report.) 

Meanwhile, the “W” button in the corner of the screen also brings up the Whoop Coach, but it’s a lot less helpful. This coach seems to focus on designing my next workout, whether I want to do that or not, and it doesn’t usually take my weekly plan or other relevant goals into account. 

If you miss the old strain/recovery view, get it back with a widget

The Whoop app offers widgets you can put on your home screen, which mostly just replicate data you can get in the app. But one of them is slightly different—a widget that shows strain and recovery the way the app used to. This view is arguably confusing, and I understand why Whoop moved away from it: your strain and recovery are shown as concentric circles, and sleep score is missing. 

But who really needs the sleep score? This widget gives my HRV and the calories it thinks I’ve burned so far today, with little icons in the corners for how long a streak I’ve kept up and the current battery life of the device. If you’d prefer the current design, with separate circles for sleep, recovery, and strain, there’s a widget option for that as well. 

Broadcast your heart rate to gym equipment

The Whoop sensor picks up your heart rate, so why not use it as a heart rate monitor with other devices? It’s not as accurate as a chest strap, so I wouldn’t advise using it in place of one, but it’s a convenient way to broadcast your heart rate to a treadmill or elliptical machine at the gym. This way you can see your heart rate on the machine’s display in real time, while still tracking the workout to your Whoop app as usual. To turn on heart rate broadcasting, tap the icon for your device (in the top right corner of the app) and you’ll see a toggle labeled broadcast heart rate. 

Wear it on your body (with or without buying more products from Whoop)

The wristband is convenient, but the ability to be worn in a bicep band is one of Whoop’s best features. You can buy Whoop’s own bicep band, but it’s not cheap. You can also buy compatible third-party bicep bands from other retailers like Amazon. This one snaps onto the Whoop device more easily than Whoop’s own band does. 

Whoop also has its Body line of clothing, including sports bras and boxer shorts with a pocket for the device. If you’re handy with a sewing needle, you could create your own. And if you’re not, but want to get the Whoop off your wrist for a particular occasion, I’ve had success taping the device to my skin with athletic tape. Not my proudest moment, but it worked.

Set up custom bedtime recommendations

Whoop’s best sleep features are a little bit hidden. Since the app knows how “recovered” you are, it can estimate how much sleep you’ve been missing out on, and recommend a bedtime to help you catch up, if needed. 

There are a few layers to this feature, so bear with me. First, scroll down on your home screen, and you’ll see a card with a recommended bedtime and wake time. Next, tap that card and you’ll see a screen where you can change what kind of bedtime recommendation you’ll get. You can choose to “meet my sleep need” (catch up if needed) or “improve my sleep” (try to stay consistent while still getting as much sleep as you reasonably can). 

There’s more, though: tap the calendar icon at the top right corner, and you can set a weekly schedule. For each day on the schedule, you can decide if you want an alarm at a set time of day, or if you’d like the Whoop device to buzz you when you’ve hit a certain amount of sleep. This could be enough to “get by,” enough to “perform,” or enough to “peak” (meet 100% of your sleep need). You can also use the schedule to get recommendations even if you don’t want the alarm. 

Only track some things in the journal

Every day, Whoop will prompt you to fill out a questionnaire about what you did the day before. This helps it to figure out what affects your recovery. A classic example is logging when you drink alcohol, and then getting hard data on just how poorly you slept on the nights you drank. 

At first, you’ll be tempted to log everything. But that’s not the right way to use the journal. First of all, if you already know something (like that alcohol interferes with your sleep), there’s no need to track it. Secondly, tracking too many things is just a lot of hassle when it comes time to fill out your journal. You can tap the “use previous answers” checkbox, but then you’re likely to miss a few things. 

Most importantly, Whoop can’t even use the data from your answers unless you’re racking up answers that are both yes and no. So there’s no need to log anything you always do, or anything you never do. I recommend paring down your journal questions like so: 

• Things that you sometimes do and sometimes don’t, and you don’t yet know how they affect your sleep and recovery
• Things that you want to log for the sake of a weekly plan
• Things that are directly relevant to your life right now, because you can always swap out your questions from time to time. 

Use those guidelines to whittle down your journal questions to just the things that actually help you to accomplish some kind of goal. Revisit the list every month or so; for example, I track allergy symptoms during the spring allergy season, but I remove it from the list for the rest of the year. Keep the questions relevant and the journal will stay useful. 

Charge the Whoop band when you shower

Whoop ships most of its devices with a wireless power pack. It’s a great idea, in theory: you can slip the battery pack onto the device while you’re wearing it, so you don’t miss a minute of valuable data. And I do appreciate this when I’m about to head out for a run and I realize my battery is at 2%. But I don’t routinely charge the Whoop this way if I can help it. 

Because who wants to wear a strap with a giant battery pack hanging off it? Not me. And as for 24/7 wear, I do not want to shower with a fabric band around my arm, and then have a soggy band to wear for hours afterward. Instead, I take the Whoop off to shower, and if the battery level is low, that’s when I charge it. This way I avoid both of these inconveniences. I recommend you do, too. 

Does my Apple Watch support sleep tracking? 

Sleep tracking was introduced with WatchOS version 7 (released in 2020). That version of WatchOS works on watches from Series 3 and newer, paired with an iPhone 6S or newer, with iOS 14 and newer. 

In other words: The oldest devices that will work are a 2015 phone, a 2017 watch, and 2020 releases of the software that run on them. As long as your Apple Watch isn’t truly ancient, it should support this. (If you’re looking to buy a new Apple Watch, though, the Series 11 is the newest.)

Where to find the Apple Watch Sleep app

You’ll need to navigate to four different places to access all of the sleep-related features of your Watch and iPhone. (Three of them are on the phone.)

On the Apple Watch

On your Watch, look for a bed icon with a greenish-blue background. (Pro tip: You can change this screen to use the names of apps, alphabetized, rather than having to play hide and seek with little icons.) When you open the Sleep app, scroll down to check (or set) your sleep schedule. That’s all you need to do with this app for setup; the Apple Watch will track your sleep automatically even if you never open this app again.

In the Health app

On your iPhone, the sleep functions are part of the Health app. (There is no dedicated Sleep app.) Open the Health app, tap Browse, then tap Sleep. From here, you can view data on recent nights of sleep, and set your sleep schedule for the future.

At the bottom of this screen, you can edit your next sleep schedule or your full sleep schedule (the one that repeats daily and weekly). This tells your phone when you’re planning on sleeping. Tap Full Schedule & Options to set that schedule, and scroll down to the bottom for the next step.

In the Watch app

To make sure your watch will track your sleep, you need to configure your Watch-specific sleep settings in the Watch app. The easiest way to access this from the Health app (tap Full Schedule & Options from the Sleep screen), and at the bottom of that screen, there’s a link to Manage Sleep in the Apple Watch App. Tap that, and you’ll go straight to those Watch settings. 

Turn on “Track Sleep with Apple Watch” to enable tracking, and turn on “Charging Reminders” so the Watch can notify you to charge it before bedtime if your battery is low in the evening.

In the Settings app

We’re not quite done. In the Settings app, you can set up your Sleep Focus. To get to it, you can go into the Health app, then Sleep and Full Schedule & Options, as above. You can also get to it from the focus modes in the Settings app. The sleep focus is optional for tracking, but it gives you access to specialized home screens and notification settings that will turn on at bedtime.

How to set up your Apple Watch to record your sleep

You can fully explore all the sleep-related features through the apps I mentioned above, but here is the short version. Do these things and you’ll have your Watch recording your sleep tonight:

1. Set up a Sleep schedule (Health app > Sleep > Full Schedule & Options).
2. Tap Manage Sleep With Apple Watch at the bottom of that screen. (This sends you to the Watch app.)
3. Turn on Track Sleep with Apple Watch.
4. Wear your Apple Watch to bed. It should be unlocked, and if you have a passcode, you’ll want wrist detection turned on. 

The Apple Watch will use the sleep schedule (or Sleep Focus, which you can turn on manually) to know when you might be sleeping. During this time, it uses your movements and your phone use, to detect whether you’re sleeping, and to estimate when you are in each stage of sleep. 

How to read your results from the Apple Watch sleep app

To see your sleep on your watch, scroll down from the main watch face (using the digital crown, or swipe up with your finger) and you’ll see a card in your Smart Stack with the previous night’s sleep. Tap this to open the Sleep app, which will show you your sleep stages, time asleep, last 14 days’ sleep, and your sleep schedule settings.

You can also see this information anytime you visit the Sleep app on your watch, or the Sleep section of the Health app on your phone. (If you wake up before your sleep schedule ends, you may need to wait until your scheduled sleep time is finished before the data becomes available.) 

Your sleep data, on either the watch or phone, will show your sleep stages represented with deep sleep at the bottom in purple, “core” (that is, light) sleep in the middle in blue, REM higher up in lighter blue, and awake in orange at the top. (That said, no wearable is going to be completely accurate when it comes to sleep stages, so don’t read too much into these.)

The app will also show you your heart rate during the night, your sleep trend (mine says “You slept an average of 7 hr 22 min over the last 7 days”), and monthly and yearly highlights showing whether you’re getting more or less sleep than in the past. 

A big part of the appeal here is the OLED panel paired with Micro Lens Array+ (MLA+) technology, which helps the screen get brighter than most OLED monitors. The difference shows up in games with strong lighting contrast. Dark scenes show the deep blacks OLED is known for, while bright elements like explosions or neon lights stand out more clearly than they do on many IPS displays. Motion also looks exceptionally clean. The 480Hz refresh rate and near-instant OLED response times make fast movement easier to track in shooters and competitive games. ASUS also includes features such as Extreme Low Motion Blur, OLED Anti-Flicker, and support for all major variable refresh rate formats, including AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-SYNC compatibility. Connectivity is up to date as well, with HDMI 2.1 ports that support modern consoles and GPUs.

The performance is impressive, but the experience is not perfect. The hardware delivers exactly what competitive players want, yet the software side still feels rough around the edges. Some users report bugs where settings reset or behave unpredictably. There is also noticeable VRR flicker when frame rates change, and input lag increases when the monitor receives a 60Hz signal, which is something to keep in mind if you plan to use it for slower console games or everyday media. Still, for players chasing extremely high refresh rates and OLED contrast, this is among the most capable options available.

The Px7 S2 use custom 40mm dynamic drivers, producing a sound with strong bass, clear highs, and a fairly natural balance. Comfort and design are another big part of the experience. The over-ear design uses memory-foam earpads lined with faux leather, while the headband and earcups combine fabric and aluminum accents. The result looks understated but expensive, and the fit tends to stay comfortable during long listening sessions, notes this PCMag review. Physical controls sit on the earcups, including buttons for playback, calls, and volume, plus a Quick Action button that cycles through active noise cancellation, pass-through mode, or off.

The headphones connect through Bluetooth 5.0 and support several audio codecs, including AAC, AptX, and SBC. On compatible Android devices, those codecs allow higher-quality wireless audio and even 24-bit playback with the right streaming service. Apple users won’t see the same high-resolution benefits, since iPhones don’t support AptX codecs and mostly rely on AAC.

You can plug in using the included USB-C cable or the USB-C-to-3.5mm audio cable if you want a wired connection. Battery life is rated at about 30 hours per charge, depending on listening volume and ANC use. On the downside, the noise cancellation isn’t as strong as the best models from Sony or Bose, and its companion app offers only a simple EQ. Still, at just $99, the highly rated Px7 S2 feels like a surprisingly strong value.

Open-ear designs are not for everyone—especially audiophiles. They have the same downside as bone conduction headphones: They let noise pollution in, and the bass and some mids can sound weak. But the tradeoff may be worth it if you want to remain aware of your surroundings, and certainly with these buds you’ll be able to hear if a cyclist is about to pass you as you’re running on the bike path.

The Bose Ultra Open buds are not waterproof, but they are water-resistant; they carry an IPX4 rating, meaning they can take some splashes, but can’t be submerged in water. The charging case uses a USB-C cable, but you can buy a wireless charging case (sold separately) for an additional $50 if you don’t want to rely on a cable. Either way, you’ll get about 7.5 hours of juice from the buds if you have the Immersive Audio feature off, and about two full charges from the case, for a total of around 27 hours.

While these earbuds don’t have multipoint connection, they do have a feature to pair two devices simultaneously and switch between them by pressing a button on the earbud—a controlled multipoint connection of sorts. They are compatible with Bluetooth 5.3 and work with the AAC, AptX Adaptive, and SBC codecs, so Android devices will get better audio than Apple users. Both users will be able to customize the EQ on the app and use features, which you can read more about in CNET’s 8/10 review.

CNET praised the devices “crazy array of controller options,” though it cautioned that some games you might remember fondly have actually aged quite poorly.

While there aren’t detachable controllers, the 7-inch screen is bigger than the original Nintendo Switch, and it has the classic D-pad and shoulder buttons as well as a rotating dial, a physical number pad, and a trackball wheel. It comes with a sturdy kickstand, an HDMI port, three USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and a micro-SD slot for side-loading games. Although you can update the system via built-in wifi, you can’t buy or download additional titles on an app store, limiting you to the pre-loaded games.

While nostalgia is the main draw of this rechargeable console, keep in mind that performance and pacing might feel different if you’re used to modern games on contemporary consoles, reminding us that not all early games have aged well. That said, there are still a ton of options to choose from that will likely include your favorites, making the My Arcade Atari Gamestation Go worth it for classic gaming enthusiasts, especially at $50 off.

(For more detail, check out my full reviews of the XReal One Pro and the RayNeo Air 4 Pro.)

Display: HDR10 vs. X-Prism optics

Both of these glasses feature excellent, vibrant high-definition displays. Looking through either will feel like watching a high-end TV floating in the air in front of you, and either will serve you well if you’re just trying to entertain yourself on a bus trip. But in a head-to-head visual comparison, the pricier XReal Ones take the win. Their flat-prism optics and superior stray light control result in “blacker” blacks and the appearance of greater contrast. On the other hand, Ray Neo Air 4s are the first display glasses with HDR10 graphics; theoretically this means a much wider color range, but in practice, I wasn’t able to see a difference in color depth—and believe me, I tried. Overall, I prefer the picture from XReal.

Winner: XReal One Pro

Video: Color range vs. size

If you’re binging Search Party on a red eye to Milwaukee, you’re going to have a slightly better experience with a pair of XReal One Pros than RayNeos. As discussed above, RayNeo Air 4 Pros’ HDR10 graphics theoretically give you more than a billion colors to enjoy, and their Bang & Olufsen tuned audio is excellent, especially the spatial audio feature. But the XReals have Bose audio, which is also excellent, and a 57° field-of-view, where the RayNeos’ top out at 47°. Those 10 extra degrees make a big difference in filling up your vision. More importantly, XReal One Pros let you adjust the size of the virtual screen, set it to “ultra-wide,” and even anchor it in place, while RayNeo’s glasses are more what-you-see-is-what-you-get—you put ’em on, and there’s the screen, with no ability to adjust its size or placement.

Winner: XReal One Pro

Gaming: Responsiveness and immersion

The XReal One Pros’ higher-end internals shine when it comes to gaming. The 3ms motion-to-photon latency and 120Hz refresh rate means fast-paced games played on a Steam Deck or PS5 run like butter. Plus, being able to anchor the screen means you won’t be lagging when you turn your head—but this is only an issue if you’re “serious” about gaming. The RayNeo Air 4 Pro also offers a 120Hz refresh rate, and work perfectly for more casual gaming. The XReal have a slight edge here, then, but only for the most hardcore players. The rest of us likely won’t notice much difference.

Winner: XReal One Pro

Productivity: Edge blurriness

If you’re trying to use your display glasses to get work done, the XReal One Pros are a better choice. RayNeo Air 4 Pros tend to show some blurriness around the edges of their display. It’s hardly a problem with gaming and videos, but the first time you glance up at the URL of your browser, it becomes an issue, especially since you can’t anchor the screen, so moving your head won’t help you see more clearly. XReal One Pro glasses have very little edge blurring and a stationary screen option, making them a more viable choice as a replacement for a laptop screen at the coffeeshop.

Winner: XReal One Pro

Ergonomics: The lighter the better

At 76g (2.68 oz), RayNeo Air 4 Pros are one of the lightest pairs of display glasses on the on the market. XReals weigh in at 87g (3.07 oz). That 11-gram difference doesn’t sound like much, but on your nose bridge over a two-hour movie, it’s noticeable. Both glasses feature adjustable temples and nose-pads to make sure you can position them in your optical sweet spot, but the XReals come in two sizes, based on your IPD (the distance between your eyes). This ensures the “sweet spot” of the lenses is perfectly aligned with your pupils, reducing eye strain during long sessions. Still, the lighter Air 4 Pros are more comfortable over the long haul.

Winner: RayNeo Air 4 Pro

The RayNeo has a high floor but a low ceiling. They offer a great experience right out of the box, especially for $250. But other than a few gimmicky features like making 2D photos look 3D (which doesn’t look great) the RayNeos are basically “what you see is what you get.” The XReal One Pros have a higher ceiling: If you want to do more with your display glasses than watch a movie or play a quick game, they are modular, so you for another $100, you can add the optional XReal Eye to get full 6DoF spatial tracking and add augmented reality features and a camera—very cool options for taking 3D photos and video. For $199, you can add the Beam Pro to turn your glasses into a standalone computer. Of course, all of this assumes you have a reason to want to do this, and so far, I haven’t found a truly compelling use for any of the XReal One Pros’ “added” features. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, they’re a good way to watch movies and play games. The rest is bells and whistles.

Winner: XReal One Pro

Price: The most important feature?

The RayNeo Air 4 Pros offer the best value in AR right now, full stop, offering a flagship-level display for a budget price. For $248, you are getting a 201-inch wearable display that outperforms some TVs in terms of refresh rate (120Hz) and brightness (1,200 nits). The XReal One Pros, at $599, are mostly asking you to pay a premium for advanced features like the X1 Spatial Computing Chip that allows the screen to stay “anchored” in space, and the potential addition of the AR-enabling Eye device. Very cool stuff, but not necessary for everyone.

Winner: RayNeo Air 4 Pro

The final verdict: It’s a tie

After all of that, I’m calling this one a tie. I can’t declare the RayNeos the winner when the XReal One Pros outclass them in just about every category—but on the other hand, $350 is a big difference in price. While power-users and early-adopter types will want the XReals, I imagine most people just want display glasses to entertain themselves on flights or to privately watch a movie projected on the ceiling in the middle of the night. For that, RayNeo 4 Pro glasses are more than adequate. They’re not as good as XReal One Pros, but the difference is far from a deal-killer. And heck, you can buy two pairs for less money than one pair of their pricier competitor.

Here’s the bottom line: If you just want to watch Dune on an airplane, buy the RayNeo Air 4 Pros. If you want to build a virtual office at a coffee shop, or you can’t stand not having the best possible product, save up for the XReal One Pros.

The appeal here is convenience: Instead of plugging in three separate chargers every night, this pad lets you place all your devices in one spot. It can charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods at the same time, which is helpful if you use Apple gear daily and want a simple bedside setup. The phone section uses MagSafe magnets, so compatible iPhones snap into place without much effort. Charging speeds reach up to 15W for iPhone 12 models and newer, which is Apple’s standard for fast wireless charging. The Apple Watch section also supports fast charging for newer models like the Series 9, so a quick top-up in the morning can add a useful amount of battery. AirPods with a wireless charging case sit on the third section of the pad.

This charger is clearly built with Apple devices in mind, so it doesn’t make much sense if you use Android phones or non-MagSafe accessories. You also need an iPhone 12 or newer to get the magnetic alignment and full 15W charging speeds. Older iPhones will still charge, but without the magnetic guidance. At $39.99, it costs less than many single-device MagSafe chargers.

Of course, the Neo isn’t a MacBook Air. To get the price of a Neo down to $500 or $600, Apple had to make some concessions, like using a mechanical trackpad instead of a modern haptic one; the absence of Touch ID on the base model keyboard; older USB-C tech, including one USB-2.0 port; and no backlight on the keyboard. These are things many users won’t notice or won’t miss much in light of the price. But what’s really allowing for the lower cost of the MacBook Neo is arguably its most interesting feature: While all of Apple’s Macs now run the company’s M-series chipset, the Neo is running the A18 Pro, the chip Apple put in the iPhone 16 Pro, coupled with 8GB of RAM.

Not only is the Neo running an iPhone SoC, this one has one fewer GPU core than the A18 Pro found in the iPhone, as Apple is using the “binned” version of the chip for this laptop. When chips are manufactured, some come out better than others. The better ones are sold as higher-end chips, while others are sold as lower-performing chips, or “binned” chips. In this case, the MacBook Neo is running A18 Pros that weren’t up to the iPhone 16 Pro standard. You can see that from the Neo’s tech specs: While it has the same six-core CPU as the iPhone 16 Pro, the Neo has a five-core GPU, one fewer than the iPhone 16 Pro’s six-core GPU.

It seems safe to assume that a MacBook running a binned iPhone chip, with 8GB of RAM, no less, wouldn’t fare as well running the latest macOS as a chip designed for the operating system. But the truth is more complicated than that.

MacBook Neo keeps up with some M-series MacBooks in benchmarking

While there aren’t any full reviews of the MacBook Neo quite yet, initial benchmarks, as spotted by MacRumors, are quite promising. The Neo’s first Geekbench tests show the laptop’s A18 Pro chip scores a 3461 in single-core performance, 8668 in multi-core performance, and 31286 in Metal (GPU) performance.

Those numbers don’t mean anything unless they’re compared to other devices, of course. Let’s look at the iPhone 16 Pro first: Despite having one more GPU than the Neo, the 16 Pro has slightly lower single-core (3445) and multi-core (8624) scores. That sixth GPU core likely helps it eke out a win in the Metal test, scoring a 32575. Still, performance across the board is relatively similar between the two devices—despite running totally different operating systems.

Where things start to get really impressive, however, is when you start comparing the Neo’s “iPhone” chip to the Mac chips in other MacBooks. The M1 MacBook Air, for example, scores a 2346 in single-core, 8342 in multi-core, and 33148 in Metal. While M1 beats the Neo in Metal tests, the Neo’s A18 Pro chip wildly outperforms M1 in single-core performance, and even wins out in multi-core by a few hundred points. That means simple tasks that don’t require a lot of processing are going to run faster on the Neo than an M1 Air, as will complex tasks—though not by as much.

Even Apple’s M4 MacBook Air doesn’t totally obliterate the Neo. The M4 Air scores a 3696 in single-core, 14730 in multi-core, and 54630 in Metal. Yes, in multi-core and GPU-intensive tasks, the M4 Air smokes the Neo. But for single core tasks, it outperforms the Neo by a smaller margin than the Neo outperforms M1 in multi-core. Simple tasks will likely feel comparable between the M4 Air and the Neo.

The MacBook Neo could be a big win for Apple

Benchmarks don’t necessarily reflect real-world performance, so we won’t really know how the MacBook Neo stacks up against Apple’s M-series MacBooks until reviewers put it through its paces. But these numbers only make me more convinced than ever that the MacBook Neo is going to be a huge success for Apple. Not only is this a great alternative to a Chromebook or a low-end Windows PC, it seems like it’s a good MacBook in its own right. You could buy an older MacBook, say an M1 or M2 machine, or you could buy a brand-new Neo, and enjoy the perks that come with a fresh purchase.

That said, one area the benchmarks don’t measure is multitasking. The Neo has 8GB of RAM, which should be find for single tasks, but once you start running too many things at once, you could choke the system. If you open too many browser tabs, or run too many apps at once, you may start to feel that pain. That’s not an issue if you were between a Neo and an M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM. But if you can find an M1 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM at a similar price point, that might be the move. You’ll get comparable performance and more flexibility for multitasking—not to mention some future-proofing with the additional RAM, as macOS gets ever more complex.