Solo Leveing Arise: Two Months until Two Years

 Actually, it will be around the 3rd of May when the first open day of play happened.  It's difficult to believe that it has been two years.

  

I play too many games and it's always good to have an alternative while servers are down.  I was playing Tower of God: New World while the livestream was going.  It's a handheld Netmarble game.  I'm also playing Where Winds Meet, Wuthering Waves, and a bunch of old games, and a few racing games.

 There is a little bit new with Solo Leveling: Arise.  If you didn't read previously, there is a US$40 version on Steam.  I haven't spent much money but I've probably spent more than that in two years.  I'd rather have the PC version, although a Mac/iPad version would be really good now.

 I still haven't tried to play Cyberpunk 2077 on my Mac, but I play Wuthering Waves on it.  Now, that my M1 MacBook Air was released in 2020, I'm surprised that it does so well.  My ASUS ZenBook Pro running Win11 Pro with a Ryzen 7 5800H and NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti seem strained on SLA while other games seem fine.  Where Winds Meet doesn't complain. 

I'm currently at Character Level 130 and have more than 40 Hunters.  Still don't have weapons or skills finalized but I'm doing well enough.  I won't be going to South Korea to compete.

Is the MacBook Neo shaking up the computer industry?

 I've seen a few reports about the MacBook Neo coming as a shock to computer makers.

Is it because it's only a little more expensive than the rest of the industry charges for mediocre laptop computers? 

The MacBook Neo is a decent entry level laptop computer.  There are a lot of savings leading to compromises versus typical MacBook Air or MacBook Pro computers.

Are there people who want e-mail and web browsing machines that don't do much else because of hardware limitations?  I remember thinking that was why there were Linux distributions, and 20 years later, I'm still wondering why Linux hasn't taken that place.

 When I see Google Chromebooks, I see Intel Pentium-related processors.  It's surprising how they're still "alive".  Weren't Chromebooks supposed to go away, replaced with Android for the desktop?

Windows 11 is so fat that they need a slimmed-down version to fit on low-end machines.  My ASUS machine has a Ryzen 7 5800H and Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti (notebook edition), and with every Windows 11 Pro update, it seems to become more feeble.

The MacBook Neo benchmarks seem quite good, faster than my M1 MacBook Air in some cases. 

 With the MacBook Neo, will Apple somehow dominate in the low-end market for laptop computers, especially using a System-on-a-Chip (A18 Pro) that comes from a phone? 

Update 2026.03.14: I watched a video comparing a Microsoft Surface laptop computer using a mobile SoC and a Neo and the real problem was that Microsoft put little effort into making Windows on ARM great.  It couldn't run a lot of applications, including games, which is a point Microsoft always made against Macs.

 Since macOS has components for running iPadOS-modified games seamlessly, it goes a long way toward showing developers that their games can run on a Mac. 

Update 2026.03.23: I was at Target and got to see the Neo.  It feels much more expensive than anything that has Windows running on it for a similar price.  While the SoC is from a phone, it's quite powerful, exceeding my M1.  I was recently trying to help a friend find a powerful but economical laptop computer for university and they were close to the prices for the Neo.  Would you buy plastic or aluminium? 

Switching from M1 MacBook Air to M5 MacBook Air?

 The new M5 MacBook Air models have been introduced.

 I'm still running on a refurbished MacBook Air that I bought in 2022.  It's still reliable but games and graphics software are less smooth than they should be.  Plus, 1TB of storage is not exactly enough.  How anyone is okay with 256 GB or 512 GB and doing more than browsing and e-mail is beyond me. 

 The base M5  MacBook Air comes with 512 GB of storage, 16 GB of RAM, 10 CPU cores, and 8 GPU cores for US$1099.  My current M1 MacBook Air has 1 TB, 16 GB of RAM, 8 CPU cores, and 8 GPU cores.  I paid US$1359 for a refurbished machine.  If there is any doubt, I'm using a 13.3 inch machine and looking at a 13.6 inch machine.

I wanted to configure a MacBook Air with more storage and more RAM.  My current 1 TB seems to be under 100 GB regularly, and I've moved games to a separate 16 TB drive that seems really slow.  It's actually a HDD.

 

Given that you cannot change the storage or RAM with Apple Silicon machines, it's important to buy everything at once.  Windows machines are somewhat more flexible, but my ASUS ZenBook Pro has some soldered RAM.  Apple makes configuring a lot of upgraded RAM and/or storage expensive.  That hasn't changed.  However, with AI processing pushing up prices, Apple seems to be holding the line. 

Is US$1899 outrageous in 2026?  Is it worse than US$1359 for a refurbished M1 MacBook Air in 2022?  I tried a similar configuration of the 14 inch MacBook Pro and it was US$400 more.  Is one fan and a better display worth that much?

I'm not sure that the 24 GB of RAM is enough, especially with so many extra cores.  I use graphic design software and play games, so 32 GB of RAM might be more appropriate.

My M1 MacBook Air will have trade-in value.  It was at US$300+ the other day.

If I was making money with my equipment, would there be a question.   I'd still wait until they were available, but the last time I jumped to buy a machine was the 1998 Wall Street G3 laptop computers.  I regretted that one so much, I gave it to someone else.  That was US$2659, as I recall for a 233 MHz, passive graphics display, and a 66 MHz bus.   Then again, there was the IBM L40SX with Intel 486SX CPU.  I got that for 25% of the original US$6000.  It lasted a few months and the mouse port broke and the extended warranty company told me that the motherboard cost more than the price of the computer.  I settled with them and bought my first Mac.  It's amazing that you can go to a store like Costco or Sam's Club and buy a US$500 machine that's more impressive than most of what we used to have.

Let's see what happens.  Will there be a new MacBook Air here this month? 

Update 2026.03.04: The MacBook Neo looks good, but not for me.  If someone was using an Intel-based MacBook Air, they'd be happy.  It's much more powerful.  It's slightly more powerful than the M1 MacBook Air supposedly.  Those people who were looking for a 12 inch MacBook replacement may be happy.  Oh, and the US$100 price bump for Touch ID and more would be worth it.  I'm still confused about the USB ports on the Neo.  One operates at USB 3.0 speed and the other operates at USB 2.0 speed.  Supposedly, there is a speed warning when you use a device on the slower port.

Update 2026.03.16: I posted a comment about going to the M5 MacBook Air on a YouTube video and someone told me to wait for the M6.  I replied that, in a year, he would have me waiting for the M7, and so on, and I'd be on the M1 until I die.

 I just need to wait for enough cash to buy it outright and wait for the trade-in money to return.   I'd like to get it as soon as possible, but paying rent, etc., and eating are important.