Neo B4103 takes cheapest Core i3 crown!

During a round-table discussion yesterday with Neo executives and Intel representatives, I asked why it took a while for the local laptop manufacturer to bring out their big guns.

The answer was pretty simple and straight-forward — they basically want to position their new Core i3 and Core i5 notebooks as among the most affordable in the local market.

So far, they did the first step to bring a Core i3 notebook in the sub-30k price point.

Neo Basic B4103
Intel Core i3 330M (2.13 GHz), supports Hyper-Threading
14.1″ display screen @ 1366×768 pixels
2GB DDR3 RAM
Integrated Intel HD
320GB HDD
DVD+RW Supermulti Optical Drive
6-cell Li-Ion @ 4400mAh

It’s pretty basic really, but the highlight here is the Core i3 processor running at 2.13GHz with 2 cores and 4 threads. And the price is just one peso shy of thirty grand — Php29,999USD 511INR 43,337EUR 487CNY 3,723. Since people are asking for OS option, there’s no pre-installed OS here (just FreeDOS) so it’s up to the buyer if they want Windows 7 with it.

And they’ve got a Core i5 as well (NEO Basic B4105) that’s got a Core i5 CPU for Php35,999USD 613INR 52,004EUR 584CNY 4,467 (see here).

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

24 Comments

ogago says:

15 years ago

sir yuga how about ung i5 ng asus? any idea kung kelan release dito? k42jr-a1
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kjaonline says:

15 years ago

No decent Vid Card..
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daddy joey says:

15 years ago

nice, i believe msi has the same specs around that price range.
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1timnatupa says:

15 years ago

tae lang talaga ang after sales service ng NEO.
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jd.Obedoza says:

15 years ago

master, ilan hours battery?
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chris says:

15 years ago

@1timnatupa: oo tama ka dyan and also mahal ang services nila kapag may nasira compared sa ibang sikat na brand
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leeto says:

15 years ago

mahal pa rin sila. considering that it is a local brand, it should be cheaper to be competitive with other brands.
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Abe Olandres says:

15 years ago

@leeto – technically speaking, they are already the cheapest.
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guyrony says:

15 years ago

I just want to ask, compared to ASUS and Acer, how competitive are Neo’s products? They are dirt cheap but quality and reliability-wise, are they worth the dough?
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skageru says:

15 years ago

i say, good job to NEO. Will wait for your hands-on review sir abe.
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JayL says:

15 years ago

i bought a NEO for 17,000+ & okay pa naman siya until ngayon. never nag-hang.

pero di ko kase siya masyado ginagamit eh pag wala lng ako sa house, i have a desktop PC + a HP Mini pa.
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bokoi says:

15 years ago

eto experience ko,

una ko laptop, blue, 2nd NEO Endura, 3rd Dell Inspiron, 4th HP Pavilion, 5th MSI CR400

all used atleast 6 months before I replace, sa lahat ng brands na yan, never had a problem with my NEO and blue laptop.

Dell – touchpad problems
HP Pavilion – display problems, hangs-up, improves after driver update, but still sometimes it hangs..
MSI – keeps on hanging up.

funny huh…
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mixm says:

15 years ago

any freezing issues are usually OS related. this is not uncommon in windows based systems. on other platforms running linux, the number of occurrences are significantly lower (on the same machine).
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manong says:

15 years ago

neo should change it’s name to a fruit like ‘mango’ to be competitive… look what it did to apple
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The Teknisyan says:

15 years ago

Removing the OS is a marketing move, since OS is usually 10% to 20% of the total cost of the unit. By removing the OS, this gives the consumer the option what OS they want to install. This is more appealing to people who are more on specs and not brand name. Since branded one usually has a lot of “crapware”, which more or less useless but takes up space on your hard drive and memory.
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jodwebguy says:

15 years ago

i think i’ll buy one.

neo always says that their laptops are just as good as the others, since they are using branded parts.

however i think i’ll only buy core i3-i7 if im programming or something. maybe i’ll buy the atom type processors, they’re cheaper.

however, for windows > XP, it would be recommended i guess to get core i3 or so, since they take advantage of the core architecture.
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IC DeaDPiPoL says:

15 years ago

@Manong

try Macopa XD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macopa

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Wax_apple_close_up.jpg/120px-Wax_apple_close_up.jpg
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Eason says:

15 years ago

I disagree, MSI brought the 1st i3 under 30k 1st here in the Philippines.
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Abe Olandres says:

15 years ago

@eason – asked the SRP of the 3 Core i3 notebooks from MSI reps and the lowest they gave was Php31,999. I currently have all 3 units now for review.

NEOKO says:

15 years ago

I still love Neo so much… 7 months na si Neoko (name for my net book) wala pa rin siyang problema. I have like 2500 songs, 50 Yahoo Games, Movies and Series, plants vs. zombies, SIMS 2 (Complete Package)… still running like a wild horse… at hindi madali maubos ang kanyang battery life…. I so love Neo Brand! GO PINOYS!
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ram says:

14 years ago

hi guess
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reyronaldo says:

14 years ago

Pre, I bought Neo rather than any brands. Ang problema kasi ng ibang brands ay ang durability. I tried Toshiba L200 ang dali nasira, mainboard problem parati nag hahang. pumunta ako sa service center nila at sinabihan ako bumili ng bago. KC pag mag replace ng motherboard mahal daw price almost the cost ng new laptop. Panget talaga ang toshiba madali masira after 2-3 years gamit mag labas na ang problema. Kaya buy Pinoy made na lang pre, mas durable at nakakatulong ka pa sa bayan. Pagbumili ka ng iba ang nakikinibang ay china at produkto china, china din ang quality.
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Van S says:

14 years ago

amazing price range right now of this i3 book, it’s being sold less than 23k in Market right now. Honestly, not bad for an iCore machine. Based on experience, the first Neo we got was for my mom, it has been 5 years since and it is still running like a charm, never had hardware issues with it. Now we got this i3, it is able to live to what its suppose to function. Not bad!
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Trang Lingg says:

13 years ago

Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but other than that, this is wonderful blog. An excellent read. I will definitely be back.
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