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DepEd’s MacBook Neo deal: 5 big questions that need to be answered

Because a "good laptop" and a "good classroom fit" are two very different things.

ByDavid Gonzales
9 min read
Four MacBook Neo laptops fanned out in silver, blush, citrus and indigo, lids angled open, on a white background.
MacBook Neo in silver, blush, citrus and indigo, from Apple's launch photos, not DepEd's units. Image: Apple

The biggest education deal in Mac history, by Apple’s own count, is ours. DepEd is buying 172,654 MacBook Neos at about Php 43,000 each, roughly Php 7.4 billion, for teachers and staff, with deliveries through March 2027. A tremendous deal, to be sure, but is it really all that great?

In this story
  1. 1. How does this connect to bigger monitors?
  2. 2. Macs were built for iPhone, so how will Android-using teachers adapt?
  3. 3. Who keeps all 172,654 – and maybe more – Macs running?
  4. 4. What did the alternative Windows laptops cost?
  5. 5. What happens in year six and beyond?
  6. 06In fairness to DepEd
  7. 07What DepEd should publish

Now, I’m an Apple user myself, and I want teachers in the Philippines to have good laptops. Many of them spend years buying their own, even going into debt for them. The MacBook Neo is a good choice. But a “good laptop” and a “good fit for a public school classroom” are two different things, and I have at least five questions that I need to ask – before I can decide which one this is.

HYPRcurrent has sent DepEd questions about this procurement. We’ll update this story with any response.

1. How does this connect to bigger monitors?

First – and this might seem simple – but picture this: there is a lesson, through a slide deck, being shown on the new MacBook Neo. The classroom has a big TV on the wall, waiting for it to connect, and the accompanying quiz for the lesson is saved on the teacher’s flash drive. How is the laptop supposed to connect to the screen, so that all the students can see the presentation more clearly?

The MacBook Neo has two (2) USB-C ports, and a headphone jack. But no HDMI, and no USB-A port either. Only one of its 2 USB-C ports can drive a display, and one of them even runs at only USB 2 speed. So you can have a charger in one port, an HDMI adapter in the other, but if you want to use a flash drive, it has nowhere to go. The ports on the Neo aren’t even labeled, so a TV or other external monitor plugged into the wrong one shows nothing, though macOS will at least tell you why.

Close-up side views of two indigo MacBook Neo laptops: one shows the headphone jack and speaker slot, the other the two USB-C ports.
The MacBook Neo’s two USB-C ports and headphone jack. Image: Apple

The TVs aren’t hypothetical. DepEd reportedly delivered 30,440 smart TVs to schools in 2025, and those, like most classroom projectors, take HDMI. DepEd says the Php 43,000 package covers software, delivery and training. But nobody mentioned adapters or hubs. If they’re not in the box, 169,008 teachers might be buying dongles with their own money, the very habit this program was supposed to end.

Diagram of the MacBook Neo's left side. The left port, USB 3 with display support, connects through a USB-C-to-HDMI adapter to a classroom TV. The right port, USB 2, connects to a charger. A USB flash drive is marked no port left.
With the charger in the right port and the HDMI adapter in the left port, a flash drive has nowhere to go. Image: HYPRcurrent

2. Macs were built for iPhone, so how will Android-using teachers adapt?

Can you guess what kind of phone most DepEd teachers use today? Probably an Android. The magic of a Mac – like the MacBook Neo – is how it works with an iPhone: calls, texts, even the whole phone screen on your desktop with iPhone Mirroring. But the fact is, most Filipinos don’t use one. Android still accounts for about 86% of mobile web traffic here, per StatCounter’s October figures.

And a teacher’s phone is part of the job: the class group chat, the parents who message at 9:00 pm, the photos for the accomplishment reports. Windows at least meets Android partway: Phone Link handles texts, calls and photos, though its best tricks favor Samsung and Honor phones. On a Mac, though, Android users get third-party apps and a cable – if they’re lucky. So many teachers may end up getting a Mac without the very thing that makes a Mac feel like a Mac.

3. Who keeps all 172,654 – and maybe more – Macs running?

Training is covered, they say in all the announcements. Both DepEd and Apple worked to co-design GuroXL, a program that steers teachers toward Apple Teacher certifications. But training teachers isn’t that hard – in fact, it’s most likely the easy part.

Somebody still has to run the fleet. Each and every one of these Macs has to be enrolled in a device-management system, kept updated, locked when they go missing and fixed when they break, across 16,400 schools, from city campuses to island barangays. DepEd hasn’t said who does that, or whether the ICT staff in its division offices are trained to manage Macs.

That worries me because of how an earlier big rollout went in the past. In an earlier round of the same program, some schools never even received their laptops more than a year after the lockdowns ended. And that was before anyone had to learn a new platform.

4. What did the alternative Windows laptops cost?

Here’s the number that would settle the whole argument, and nobody has published it yet. Of the 231,725 teacher laptops awarded so far, 62,717 run Windows. We still don’t know their brand, their specs, their warranty, or what DepEd paid for them.

Those laptops are the control group here. If comparable Windows machines came in well under Php 43,000, even with a five-year warranty priced in, then the Mac lot needs a better explanation than the shiny new logo – which doesn’t even light up, by the way. If they came in at or above that price, and the Windows alternatives were indeed much pricier, then the Neo was the smarter buy indeed, and DepEd should be saying so loudly – receipts and all.

We still don’t even know who won the Mac contract. DepEd’s own announcement doesn’t name the winning bidder, and the first public word of the deal came from Apple’s latest earnings call, not from DepEd. When I checked DepEd’s notices-of-award page on November 4, there was nothing on the Mac contract.

DepEd says the purchase took time because devices had to meet standards for performance, durability, battery life and warranty. Those are fair things to demand. They’re also exactly where a spec can be quietly written around one product, which is what Indonesian prosecutors alleged in their Chromebook case. I’m not saying that happened here. I’m saying the documents that would prove it didn’t aren’t public yet.

5. What happens in year six and beyond?

A 5-year warranty sounds generous until you ask the obvious follow-up: then what? There is no laptop that can last for an entire teaching career, and nobody expects one to. But a fleet this size needs a refresh budget and a disposal plan, but DepEd hasn’t shown either. Its past record makes the question more than fair: lawmakers sought a probe in 2023 after DepEd laptops turned up for sale in surplus shops. What if that happens again this time around?

To be fair to the Neo, it should keep getting updates for many years to come. The 2020 M1 MacBook Air, which also shipped with 8GB, still runs macOS 27. But Apple already reserves its most advanced on-device AI for Macs with M3 or later and at least 12GB, and the Neo’s 8GB RAM is soldered to the board. It won’t be e-waste in five years. But it’s definitely capped from day one.

There are smarter ways to buy now. The new procurement law, RA 12009, brings in lifecycle cost analysis. In the US, a Texas district took its Neos on a four-year lease after finding Apple’s financing terms better than a Lenovo offer’s. Did DepEd consider either?

In fairness to DepEd

Fans of this deal will reach for 2021 first – a year when a scandal involving DepEd and old, expensive, obsolete Windows laptops broke out. Php 43,000 per MacBook Neo is about Php 15,300 less than the Php 58,300 DepEd paid back then for Intel Celeron-powered laptops that state auditors flagged as pricey and outdated and the Senate investigated. But in my opinion, beating a clear scandal isn’t a win. It’s the floor.

The better arguments are real, and DepEd deserves to have them made. The 5-year warranty is a first for DepEd laptops. The MacBook Neo’s battery beat most budget Windows rivals in professional testing, and in a country with brownouts, that counts for a lot. And that same US Texas district, after comparing it with Lenovo and Asus models, rated it the strongest on performance and reliability.

But there is still one asterisk on the discount. The MacBook Neo launched here at Php 39,990 back in April, then Apple raised the local price by Php 10,000 in June. DepEd’s claimed discount is measured after that Php 10k price hike. Against the launch price, DepEd is only paying about Php 3,000 more per unit, with warranty, delivery and training thrown in.

Bar chart of MacBook Neo prices in the Philippines: Php 39,990 launch price in April 2026, Php 49,990 retail price after the June 2026 hike, and about Php 43,000 DepEd unit price, which includes a 5-year warranty, delivery and training.
DepEd’s unit price sits below the retail price and above the launch price. Image: HYPRcurrent

What DepEd should publish

DepEd can settle most of this with documents it already has, and it should before the Senate approves the Php 13 billion it wants for over 267,000 more laptops in 2027. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers says about 75% of teachers still don’t have one.

  1. The abstract of bids, the specs and every bid bulletin for the Mac lot.
  2. The award criterion and scoring, the winning bidder and the contract.
  3. The brand, specs and unit price of the 62,717 Windows laptops.
  4. What’s in the box: adapters, hubs and chargers.
  5. Who manages and repairs the fleet, including outside the cities.
  6. The plan for year six and beyond: refresh, buyback and disposal.

Do DepEd teachers deserve good laptops? Yes. Is the MacBook Neo one of the best options in its price range and product category? Absolutely. But here’s the bottom line: we, the public, deserve to know more about this landmark deal than what’s been announced.

The MacBook Neo deal with Apple to give new laptops to DepEd teachers may turn out to be one of the best deals in education ever made in the public sector here in the Philippines. Still, taxpayers deserve to see why it should be this one, and not any of the other possible options available.

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