Of course the 8GB of RAM is also limiting for running any kind of VM, but this notebooks are almost exactly what I was looking for, except for the 8GB of memory.
I think this may well be what Apple is thinking! I've only ever purchased an Apple laptop, that was refurbished, because of the, what I consider, too high pricing for their lineup of really nice laptops. (I'm not bad mouthing Apple, I'm just cheap.) IMO, if Win 12 is as bad as what some are thinking, a lot of people will switch to Apple who may be afraid of Linux. (I'm referring to folks like me who normally use a computer for the normal stuff and some semi-lite gaming.)
The Neo pricing is usually my ceiling price for a Windows laptop, so I'll be watching the reviews and HN to see I if want to purchase one. Very exciting!
I am actually really excited for a Apple laptop for once, since it is kind the perfect replacement for my Chromebook Duet 3 that I was looking for.
I used an M1 Air with 8GB as my main software development machine for a year during Covid. It was fine.
However, the price argument doesn't make sense. I bought a EUR300 laptop for my wife 3 years ago that has a Intel Core i3 N305 CPU (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/231805/...), and that CPU, like any modern CPU from Intel, has virtualization instructions.
Heck, my Chromebook Duet with a Snapdragon 7c Gen 2, that compared to this A18 Pro chip is laughable underpowered, also has virtualization instructions (this is why Crostini, the Linux virtual environment for ChromeOS, works).
I suppose we'll find out pretty soon, supporting virtualization would be important if they wanted to sell these to CS students that need eg. Docker.
Now this webpage may be out-of-date, so take my claims with a grain of salt.
