CNCB News

• Apple's MacBooks now cost $100 to $300 more after memory shortage-related price increases.
• While the hikes could dissuade shoppers from the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lineups, the Neo remains a solid value.
• The Neo offers Apple's premium build quality and app ecosystem — plus students can get it for $599.

Apple's entry-level laptop is getting a price hike, but a look at the numbers shows it's still a very competitive deal.

The Cupertino-based computer company said this week it was raising prices on many of its MacBooks by about 20% to offset rising memory chip costs.

For higher-end models, that works out to a $300 increase, which could prompt some buyers to second-guess their need for a 14-inch MacBook Pro.

But Apple's initial bargain pricing for the Neo is likely to take a lot of the sting out of its $100 hike.

Now at $699 (or $599 for students), the Neo packs considerable punch when compared to about any other similarly priced laptop on the market right now.

Many users probably don't need the M5 processing power of a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro in their daily lives while browsing the internet or streaming TV and music. So, they probably won't notice the trade-offs Apple made to get costs down. The computer is built with surplus iPhone chips, which are more than powerful enough for many tasks.

What they will surely notice, however, is Apple's iconic industrial design, including the Neo's aluminum chassis that feels more expensive than it is. Rival $700 laptops from Lenovo, Dell, and HP tend to be made of plastic, and it can show.

The Neo features a 13-inch display, side-firing speakers, and up to 16 hours of battery life. When it was released in March, YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee called it "potentially Apple's most disruptive product in the last 10-plus years."

Apple is also making a reasonably safe bet that the stickiness of its operating system — such as its coveted blue iMessage bubbles — will convince iPhone and iPad users to ride it out through this market turbulence. Apple tech is made to work seamlessly across its devices.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note that Apple's focus on higher-end customers gives the company more room to raise prices to solve this problem rather than sacrifice hardware performance.

Perhaps more than anything else, there's the fact that Apple is not alone in dealing with rising supply costs.

Competitors like Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Microsoft have already raised laptop prices by a similar percentage in recent months, and UBS economist Alan Detmeister said in a June note that it might not end there.

Apple's move "might prompt other consumer computer retailers to raise their prices," he said.

Any way you slice it, the Neo is still a pretty good deal.