MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, and everything else Apple announced this week

From affordable MacBooks to new iPhones, Apple announced a series of new products this week.

The tech giant kicked things off Monday with the new iPhone 17e and M4 iPad Air. And on Tuesday, Apple announced the M5 MacBook Air, new MacBook Pro models, new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, and new Studio Display and Studio Display XDR. Apple then wrapped up its announcement Wednesday with a cheaper MacBook called the MacBook Neo, which runs on a chip similar to the iPad and iPhone.

If you don’t have time to check out all the new products, we’ve compiled all the announcements here.

iPhone17e

Apple has announced the latest version of its affordable iPhone series, the iPhone 17e. Priced at $599, it will be available on March 11th.

This smartphone is powered by the A19 chip found in the base iPhone 17. The base model comes with 256 GB of storage, which is double the entry storage in the iPhone 16e.

One of the most notable changes from previous budget iPhones is the addition of Qi2, which supports MagSafe and up to 15W wireless charging. As for the camera, the iPhone 17e has the same 48-megapixel camera as the iPhone 16e.

Apple says the iPhone 17e also includes C1X, Apple’s latest generation cellular modem, which is up to two times faster than C1 in the iPhone 16e. The tech giant says the C1X uses 30% less energy than the modem in the iPhone 16 Pro, resulting in improved battery life.

The smartphone is available in black, white, and a new soft pink color.

iPad Air M4

Apple announced the new iPad Air, which is powered by the M4 chip and is 30% faster than the M3 iPad Air and 2.3x faster than the M1 version. The new devices will continue to retail for $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch model. Education customers receive a $50 discount.

iPad Air is designed to be faster with an updated neural engine and more memory, making it suitable for AI applications.

iPad Air also has an 8-core CPU and 9-core GPU, making it a good choice for gaming and photo editing. It also includes 12 GB of unified memory, a 50% increase over the previous model, bringing memory bandwidth up to 120 GB/s. Apple says these upgrades will allow users to run AI models faster than previous generations.

The device comes in four colors: Blue, Purple, Starlight, and Space Gray. Storage options are 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.

MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

Alongside the release of the new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, Apple announced updated MacBook Pro models featuring the latest chipsets. Apple said these new chips were specifically designed to help its laptops better handle intensive AI tasks. The new Pro laptops can handle AI tasks up to 4x faster than their respective M4 predecessors.

M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are up to 4x faster than M4 Pro and M4 Max for LLM prompt processing and up to 8x faster than M1 Pro and M1 Max for AI image generation.

MacBook Pro features up to 2x faster read/write performance than the previous generation, starting with 1 TB of storage for MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and 2 TB of storage for MacBook Pro with M5 Max. The laptop’s battery life is up to 24 hours, and with a 96W or higher USB-C adapter, users can charge up to 50% of the battery in 30 minutes. This laptop supports Thunderbolt 5 and has a 6-speaker sound system.

14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with the M5 Pro chip start at $2,199 and $2,699, respectively, and models with the M5 Max chip start at $3,599 and $3,899, and are available in black or silver.

M5 MacBook Air

Like the new MacBook Pro models, Apple’s new MacBook Air is designed to be better at handling AI tasks.

The new MacBook Air has 18 hours of battery life, a six-hour improvement over 2020 Intel-based Apple laptops, and features a 12 MP center stage camera for video calls, a three-microphone array, and a sound system with support for spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. It also features two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a MagSafe charging port, and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

Prices for the 13-inch MacBook Air start at $1,099, and the 15-inch model starts at $1,299. Choose from Sky Blue, Midnight, Starlight, and Silver. The Air also comes with 512 GB of storage, doubling the base capacity of its predecessor.

MacBook Neo

Apple has announced a low-cost entry-level laptop called the MacBook Neo, which is Google’s answer to the Chromebook. Starting at $599, MacBook Neo is designed for students and users who do tasks that don’t require intensive workflows, such as video editing and 3D rendering.

The 13-inch laptop comes in four colors: Silver, Blush, Citrus, and Indigo. The base model comes with 256 GB of storage, while the $699 model comes with 512 GB of storage and Touch ID.

The laptop runs on the A18 Pro chip found in the iPhone 16 Pro models, rather than the more powerful and expensive M5 chip used by the latest MacBook Air.

MacBook Neo has a 1080p FaceTime HD camera and dual microphones, as well as speakers on each side that support spatial audio. The battery is powered through either of the two USB-C ports and lasts up to 16 hours on a single charge.

MacBook Neo features a 5-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, supporting a level of gameplay and on-device AI tasks similar to recent iPhones.

Studio Display and Studio Display XDR

Apple announced the new $1,599 Studio Display and $3,299 Studio Display XDR. The 27-inch display comes with an upgraded camera and enhanced connectivity. Both feature 12 MP Center Stage cameras, which Apple says offer improved image quality and support for Desk View, a feature that shows you a bird’s-eye view of your face and desk at the same time.

The display comes with a Thunderbolt 5 port, so you can connect it to accessories and daisy-chain up to four displays (Thunderbolt 5 Pro cable included).

Studio Display’s 5K Retina display has over 14 million pixels, 600 nits of brightness, and supports the P3 wide gamut color standard, which covers a wider visible color spectrum than standards such as sRGB.

Studio Display XDR features a 5K Retina XDR display (5120 x 2880 resolution) with mini LED backlighting and over 2,000 local dimming zones. SDR brightness reaches up to 1,000 nits, HDR brightness reaches up to 2,000 nits, and contrast ratio is 1,000,000:1. It also supports the Adobe RGB color standard.

M5 Pro and M5 Max chips

The new chip is designed around Apple’s new Fusion architecture, an advanced design that includes a powerful CPU, scalable GPU, media engine, unified memory controller, neural engine, and Thunderbolt 5 functionality.

Both chips feature 18-core CPUs, an upgrade from the M4 Pro’s 14-core configuration and the M4 Max’s 16-core configuration.

This CPU features 12 all-new performance cores, plus six “super cores,” representing Apple’s highest performance cores. Overall, the CPU improves performance for professional workloads by up to 30%.

The M5 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory, up from 48GB on the M4 Pro, and has 307GB/s of bandwidth. M5 Max continues to support up to 128 GB of unified memory and increases bandwidth to 614 GB/s.

new accessories

Apple announced new spring colors for iPhone cases, Apple Watch bands, and crossbody straps. Apple’s silicone case for the standard iPhone 17 now comes in three new colors: Bright Guava, Vanilla, and Electric Lavender. Bright Guava and Vanilla are also available on iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.

The Apple Watch Sport Band is now available in Bright Guava, Clementine, and Soft Pink, and the Sport Loop adds Bright Guava, Blue Mist, and Cantaloupe to its color lineup.

The crossbody strap is now available in bright guava and soft pink.