The new "budget" Apple laptop, MacBook Neo, immediately attracted predictable criticism for an extremely stingy RAM allotment — 8 GB. That's barely enough for a single heavy browser session; the OS ends up paging to the much slower SSD (i.e., swapping), and the whole experience feels sluggish.
Thermals add another layer of trouble. Apple put an A18 Pro (a phone-class SoC) into a largely passive-cooled chassis, and the cooler simply can’t keep temps down under load. The chip hits ~105°C and the Neo trims clock speed to cope, so you never see the A18 Pro run at full performance.
Some enthusiasts tried fixes. YouTuber ETA Prime improved airflow/heat dissipation and saw temps fall to roughly 83–85°C instead of 105°C; with throttling eliminated, frame rates in games sometimes doubled. Another modder lodged a plain copper block against the hot spot and reported up to ~15% better performance. These DIY changes (e.g., added heatsinking, better conduction) show the gap between factory design trade-offs and what modest cooling tweaks can recover.