MacBook Neo vs. iPad Air – Which Should You Buy?

By Josh Teder

It’s 2026, and thanks to what everyone’s now calling “RAMageddon,” the AI-driven memory chip shortage that’s jacked up prices across basically every laptop and tablet maker, Apple has raised prices across its own lineup too. So if you’ve got $1,000 or less to spend and you’re stuck deciding between an iPad Air and a MacBook Neo, that price hike is exactly what makes this comparison worth having. On paper, these two land pretty close together. But once you start adding accessories to the iPad Air, that gap opens up fast.

Why You’d Spend More for the iPad Air

Add an Apple Pencil and a Magic Keyboard to an iPad Air, and you can easily top $1,000, especially if you don’t have access to education pricing. So why would you do that?

If you want one device that can take notes, hold your digital textbooks, let you type on a keyboard, do word processing, and browse the web, but also detach into a touchscreen tablet you can use curled up on the couch, the iPad Air does all of that in a way the MacBook Neo just can’t. If you need to both write with a keyboard and take notes digitally, there are a couple of other combos worth considering too; more on that below.

The Cellular Option

One big edge for the iPad Air is cellular. If you’re on the go and don’t want to tether off your phone, you can just pull out the iPad and it’ll connect automatically. No Mac currently offers a cellular option. Here in the US, carriers like Google Fi let you add an eSIM to an iPad for no extra charge, at least on their Flexible and Unlimited Premium plans (they’re not a sponsor; that’s just what I use).

The Apple Pencil Pro

The other big reason to spend more on the iPad Air is the Apple Pencil, specifically the Pencil Pro, since it wirelessly charges just by sticking to the iPad Air magnetically. Paired with an app like Procreate, it’s a genuinely great tool for digital art, with barrel roll, haptics, and a hover effect that a standard stylus can’t touch. The iPad Air also has a wider P3 color gamut (about 25% wider than sRGB), a bit more brightness, and True Tone, none of which the MacBook Neo has.

One more small thing, the 11-inch iPad Air feels slightly more portable than the MacBook Neo once everything’s packed up. It’s a minor difference (roughly 150g between a fully accessorized iPad Air and the Neo), not enough to matter for most people.

Why You’d Go for the MacBook Neo Instead

First, price. The MacBook Neo comes in at less money than an accessorized iPad Air, at least once you’re buying Apple’s own accessories. Go third-party, and that gap shrinks, though third-party Pencil competitors especially just aren’t as good.

Second, and honestly the biggest reason, it’s a Mac. macOS is more open. You can download apps from the web, vibe code with Claude or Antigravity and run them from Terminal, and navigate a full file system, none of which you can do on an iPad. macOS also has slightly better windowing, though iPadOS has closed that gap quite a bit. You can download games from places like Steam instead of only the App Store, and you get full browsers with real extensions like Grammarly or Monarch. You also get more storage for the money, an extra USB-C port, a better keyboard, and a larger (if non-haptic) trackpad that I actually prefer.

Battery life is another big one. The MacBook Neo clearly outperforms the iPad Air here, and standby battery life is better too in my experience, especially if you keep the Apple Pencil attached to your iPad, which drains it faster.

So with Apple’s recent price hikes, the MacBook Neo at $699 (or $599 with education pricing here in the US) starts to look like a pretty great deal.

Should You Get Touch ID?

For $100 more, you get Touch ID in the power button plus a bump to 512GB of storage. For a college student, or anyone who wants this thing to last a few years of photos, videos, and files, plus the convenience of Apple Pay and unlocking with your fingerprint, I think that’s worth it. That said, the base 256GB model without Touch ID is totally usable too.

What I’d Actually Buy

If you go the iPad route, the first place I’d look is a used iPad or an M3 iPad Air (last generation). You can typically find one for around $400 or less here in the US, and you’ll save hundreds of dollars. iPadOS often holds back the M-series chip anyway, so most people won’t notice much of a performance difference.

For the money you’d spend on a fully accessorized iPad Air, I’d rather put that toward a MacBook Neo plus a reMarkable Paper Pure and get the best of both worlds.

That’s honestly what I do. You get a Mac for anything that needs a proper computer, plus a great keyboard to type on, and a dedicated note-taking device that feels more like paper, with batteries that last up to 2 weeks on a charge and a screen you can easily read in sunlight. reMarkable sent me their latest writing tablet, the Paper Pure, which I’m currently reviewing (make sure you’re subscribed to our YouTube channel or following us here for that review). The Kindle Scribe is also a solid option here if you want a bigger screen for reading books along with note-taking.

The third option I’d seriously consider is a MacBook Neo plus a renewed or previous-generation iPad, though that’ll still run you around $500 once you add the Apple Pencil. This is the pick if you want a Mac but also want your digital note-taker to specifically be an iPad, since apps like Notes (which can solve equations for you), full color, and a snappier LCD display over e-ink all have real advantages. It also doubles as a solid content consumption device.

So those are all my recommendations, but if you’ve used both of these and have a take on which one people should actually buy, let me know in the comments. For more, check out my MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air comparison and my iPad Mini vs. iPad Air breakdown.