Colorful Custom MacBook Neo Built With Spare Parts

The MacBook Neo is Apple’s most affordable laptop, and it also happens to be the most colorful and easiest to repair in years. That repairability means owners can buy official replacement parts in any of the four available colors and swap them in themselves. Naturally, that raises a question: What would happen if you bought a Neo just to see how wild you could make it look using only official Apple components?

I ordered an indigo Neo to experiment with, along with spare parts from Apple’s self-service repair store. My selections included a replacement trackpad and bottom case in blush, plus USB-C ports and keycaps in citrus. The goal was to create as much of a mismatched look as possible without tackling more complex components like the top case or lid, both of which require disassembling the display.

Here’s what the parts cost: trackpad in blush for $78.32, bottom case in blush for $34.32, keycaps in citrus for $39, and USB-C boards in citrus for $14. The total came to $165.64 plus tax, which is nearly 30 percent of a brand-new Neo’s price. So while it’s a fun experiment, buying all these parts purely for looks isn’t exactly budget-friendly. Still, you end up with something that’s uniquely yours.

Opening the Neo is straightforward. Replacing the bottom case is the easiest step, since you have to remove it with a pentalobe screwdriver to access the internals anyway. The trackpad and USB-C ports were also simple, requiring only that I disconnect a few ribbon cables and remove several Torx screws before installing the colorful replacements. After about 40 minutes, I had a customized Neo.

There are plenty of fun color combinations you could explore using just the trackpad, ports, and bottom plate. But even those three parts will set you back $126.64, which is not insignificant for a $599 laptop.

Then came the keycaps. I was most excited about these, as my love for mechanical keyboards and colorful keycaps is well known. I wanted to give the Neo a two-tone look reminiscent of custom mech boards, swapping only the alphas, numbers, space bar, and arrow keys to citrus while leaving the modifiers indigo. Changing laptop keys is obviously harder than swapping standard keycaps, but I figured I’d manage.

Reader, I did not manage.

I failed to order the adhesive strips and plastic removal tools that Apple sells for keycap removal. I overlooked the fact that you have to scroll down on each parts page to see available tools. In my defense, Apple outsourced the self-service repair store to a third-party logistics company, and the site is fairly bare-bones.

You don’t absolutely need the official keycap tool and adhesive, but it would almost certainly be easier and less risky than prying them off with a spudger like I did. More importantly, don’t skip the instructions on how to reinstall the keys. I managed to damage the fragile hinge clips on a few keys, and a metal fin on an arrow key’s scissor switch snapped off before I figured out the proper technique, thanks to a couple of videos. Notably, the key reassembly instructions are buried on a secondary page linked at the bottom of Apple’s written guide.

Once I got the hang of it, I installed the citrus keycaps on the alpha and number keys, minus the A, D, 5, and 8 keys where I had to use the original undamaged indigo keys. I also kept the W and S indigo for the aesthetic. Unfortunately, reattaching the arrow key’s scissor switch will likely require a trip to the Genius Bar. I’m curious to see their reaction to my multicolored Neo.

Despite my avoidable mistakes, these modifications are very doable if you read the instructions first and don’t rush. It might not be cost-effective to replace all the parts I did, and spending $80 on a perfectly good trackpad does feel a bit silly. But just swapping the keycaps for $39, plus $13 for the removal toolkit, can get you pretty far. Just learn from my errors.

Even if I didn’t nail these changes as well as I’d hoped, I love that this is even possible on a MacBook. While I was cursing Apple under my breath during the install for its unintuitive parts site and buried repair instructions, I hope the company continues this trend toward repairability with future MacBook Airs and Pros. And I hope we get more fun colors for those too, along with replacement parts to mix and match at our own risk.