On an earnings call today, an ASUS executive admitted that Apple's more affordable MacBook Neo is a "shock" to the PC industry (via PCMag). In the U.S., the MacBook Neo starts at just $599, or at an even lower $499 for college students.
"Given Apple's historically very premium pricing, launching such an affordable product is certainly a shock to the entire market," said ASUS's Chief Financial Officer Nick Wu, according to a transcript of the earnings call published by Seeking Alpha. His comment was translated to English by an interpreter who was present on the call.
Wu said the MacBook Neo has some limited specs, including only 8GB of RAM, and he believes this may impact the ability to use certain apps. However, MacBook Neo reviewer Patrick Tomasso played back 4K video in DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro, edited a photo in Adobe Lightroom, and used many tabs in Google Chrome on the laptop, all without issue. In fact, most if not all reviews praised the MacBook Neo's performance.
Wu believes that Apple seems to be positioning the MacBook Neo as a device that is more for "content consumption," like a tablet.
"Of course, it's not that it cannot do all the work, but considering user experience and those hardware limitations, the experience, I think, differs significantly from mainstream products," he said, according to the transcript.
Nevertheless, Wu said the PC industry is taking the MacBook Neo's introduction "very seriously."
"I believe all PC vendors, including upstream vendors like Microsoft, Intel and AMD, they're all taking this very seriously, seriously discussing how to compete with this product in the entire PC ecosystem," said Wu, per the transcript. "The entire PC system will launch corresponding products to compete with Apple."
Ultimately, he said the MacBook Neo's actual impact on the PC market remains to be seen.
"The final market competition outcome is hard to predict," he said. "We just need more time."
With the MacBook Neo launch underway, the clock is officially ticking.
