I was ‘billboard surfing’ last week on Ngong Road during my commute and was pleasantly surprised to see Apple’s recently launched MacBook Neo being promoted, around a month or so since its global launch. 

Now, what really caught my attention was the unusually low price of only Kes. 87,199 specifically for students and teachers with a valid institution ID. The offer also includes an additional 3% saving, a free one-year Office 365 subscription, and it comes with the Redington 24-month extended warranty. 

It also turns out I was at a mall in Westlands a couple of weeks ago and found the MacBook Neo being sold at an Apple Reseller at KES 118,500 for the 256GB model and KES 138,000 for the 512GB model. The one I handled was the last one in stock and the shop attendant told me they are selling like hotcakes. 

To be clear, the MacBook Neo is an entry-level MacBook that is a 13‑inch model with an A18 Pro chip, 8GB of unified memory, and starts at 256GB of SSD storage that maxes out ot 512GB. 

Sometime last month, I blogged about how the MacBook Neo could be Apple’s most disruptive offering globally given that it’s significantly more affordable than any other MacBook it has ever launched. It’s effectively going head-to-head with mid-range Windows laptops and ChromeBooks. 

What I can say as a seasoned MacBook user is once you use one it’s extremely difficult to consider using any other laptop! The education focussed offer for the MacBook Neo is a first as far as I know for Apple in Kenya and it will get many students onto Apple’s ecosystem if they are not there already with iPhones and iPads. 

The bottom-line is there has never been such an affordable MacBook in Kenya until the Neo arrived and that is genuinely exciting!