The MacBook Neo may be Apple’s cheapest laptop, but it’s also shaping up to be one of the weirdest, most fun DIY projects the company has (accidentally) made possible in years.
As Macworld points out, Apple has opened up MacBook Neo parts through its self-service repair program, and the way the shop works seems to leave room for creative color mixing. The shop apparently does not limit the purchase of spare parts to the original color of your machine. In other words, you can order, for example, a Citrus bottom case for a silver MacBook Neo or Indigo keycaps for a Rouge model.
How to customize your MacBook Neo yourself
All you need is the repair manual card and the know-how to carry out the work yourself. Apple’s own self-service repair page says customers can purchase genuine parts, tools and repair manuals for supported devices. But it also emphasizes that this is intended for people who have the knowledge and experience to carry out electronics repairs. Therefore, the company requires users to start with the repair manual, and Apple says they need the manual’s repair ID before ordering the parts.
But once you get over that hurdle, you can get your hands on components like buttons, bottom case, battery, display, trackpad, logic keyboard, and much more. That’s what makes the Neo so unique, as Apple has historically failed to design its laptops to allow for parts replacement on their own.
How much does that cost?
Apple’s US parts prices for the MacBook Neo include a battery for $111.75, a display for $219.12, a keyboard for $113.52, a trackpad for $78.32 and a base case for $34.32, with separate Indigo keyboard caps listed for $39. The report also notes that this is the first MacBook where replacing the keyboard doesn’t require purchasing the entire topcase assembly, making the cosmetic swap much less ridiculous.
For a company that typically tightly controls cosmetic customizations, the MacBook Neo repair ecosystem has inadvertently opened the door to something fairly rare, DIY color remixing.
