Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

If Apple continues with the budget Neo brand into a 12 GB iteration, I can see this becoming more realistic (rather than a novelty). That being said, Parallels may need to review its licensing with a budget tier in mind. Few will buy a cheap computer and then pay what Parallels charges for a license (regardless if one-time or subscription).

They need to introduce something below the Standard license targeting the Neo. What I'd personally consider is:

- Standard gets 16 GB vRAM (to perfectly target the base MacBook Air). But leave it at 4-6 vCPUs to not compete with the Pro (still for general computing, not power-users)

- New "Lite" tier with 8 GB vRAM max for the Neo (4 vCPUs). Increasing to 12 GB vRAM if the Neo does.

Then you target a $89 price point one-time-purchase for the "Lite" tier. Essentially three plans, targeting your three major demographics: budget, standard, and pro/power-user.

I’m excited that Apple now has a reason to keep MacOS small. Their soon to be top-selling machine has 8GB and they won’t want to make all those millions of Neos unusable by shipping a bloated OS.

So in other words... We COULD in theory run Windows on our iPhones.

> Windows 11 VM requires a minimum of 4GB of RAM to function

You can give it less. It may refuse to install, but even without using any workarounds, you can change the assigned RAM after installing and it will not refuse to boot. The minimum for Windows Server 2025 is 2 GB, and it’s basically the same OS (just with less bloat).

Can it run Linux?

Not surprising but good to hear. It seems that there really isn’t anything that runs on a new MackBook Air that you couldn’t run on a NEO. It might not be as fast for some things but it gets the job done.

“Parallels Desktop runs on MacBook Neo in basic usability testing. The Parallels Engineering team has completed initial testing and confirmed that Parallels Desktop installs and virtual machines operate stably on MacBook Neo. Full validation and performance testing is ongoing, and additional compatibility statement will follow if required.”

If Parallels can run it, UTM likely can run a fair bit too.

Nice!

The best Windows laptop you can buy is still a MacBook.

Was that in doubt?

does that mean since this is the iPhone 16 cpu, by proxy the iPhone 16 can also run Windows in a virtual machine?

Funnily it probably runs Windows better than the typical corporate spyware burdened x86 laptop.

Man, I do wonder what the realistic lifespan of that single NAND chip will be after it gets hammered by constant swapping of running tasks way beyond the capabilities of a 8GB RAM machine.

I have a PC with a 10+ year old 256GB SATA Samsung SSD that's still in top shape, but that's different because that drive has those 256GB split over several NAND chips inside, so wear is spread out and shuffled around by the controller to extend lifespan. But when your entire wearable storage is a single soldered chip, I'm not very optimistic about long term reliability.

Now just needs to have that pre-installed by Apple, and macOS somehow hidden during boot time.