MacBook Neo vs. XPS 13: The golden age of ultraportables is here

This is Dell's new XPS 13. It was announced all the way back in January at CES, but it wasn't until early in June that we knew much about it, including its $699 price, $599 with a student discount

That price is important because it puts it squarely in competition with this

This is Apple's MacBook Neo, and it arrived in March for $599 or $499 for students

Laptops under $600 aren't new, of course, but from Apple they are

And $600 laptops typically aren't as nice as the Neo. And it definitely changed the expectations of what people could get in a laptop at that price

What was a bit odd, though, was that the Neo didn't seem to be affected by the price increases Windows laptop makers were already struggling with in March, caused by Ramageddon

But that was then, and this is now. and at the end of June, the component shortages caught up with Apple, and both of these laptops

have the same $699 starting price. So now we have two pretty great looking laptops for $600 or $700

The XPS undoubtedly looks like it has the edge though, but maybe not. So I'm going to go through

the pluses and minuses for both, and you can decide for yourself the better way to spend $700

dollars, so let's get to it. All right, so before I jump in, Dell sent me this XPS 13

for this video, but it is a pre-production unit, and while it seemingly looks and acts perfect

the performance might not measure up to what is currently shipping. So for the purposes of this comparison

I didn't benchmark test this one, but that doesn mean I don have performance numbers to share later on First though let talk features and design So on the surface they not too different both small and lightweight with

all metal bodies, though the Neo's body is sealed and silent and the XPS has vents and fans

though they're relatively quiet. What's interesting about the XPS 13 design is that it is slightly

smaller but has a larger display, and you can see part of that is because of the Neo's chin

underneath the screen that the XPS just doesn't have. For $699 in the XPS 13

the basic configuration is an Intel Core 5 320 processor, 8 gigs of memory, 512 gigs of storage

and a 13.4-inch 2.5K touch LCD. And for the Neo, you get an Apple A18 Pro

8 gigs of memory, 256 gigs of storage, and a 13-inch 2.4K LCD

The only Neo upgrades are to double the storage to 512 gigs

and that includes adding Touch ID to the keyboard, raising the price to $800

Dell gives you the option to increase RAM to 16 gigs, but that bumps the price to $900

And actually, the XPS 13 already has a lot that's better in the base model than the base Neo

That includes things like a nicer display, a backlit keyboard, and better USB-C ports

And those ports are split, one on each side, making it easier to connect to power or displays

So where does the NEO win? Well, it does come in four colors. So that's nice. The base XPS 13 right now is just this blue

It a beautiful blue but you can get a similar blue and three other choices with the NEO Also the Neo trackpad is better Not dramatically better and certainly not a deal breaker but the mechanical

pad on the Neo is remarkably good for any laptop, let alone a formerly $600 one. Again, this is a

pre-production sample from the Dell, so maybe it might improve. And one other thing, the Dell has

no headphone mic combo jack, so you'll need a USB-C adapter or a hub for wired headphones. So those

are three relatively small things where the Neo comes out on top. But the biggest thing, the thing

that will make the Neo a no-brainer for a lot of people, the Dell XPS 13 is not a MacBook. The thing

that makes the Neo so exciting is that it gives Apple fans a new, less expensive entry point to

get a new MacBook. And for those who love their iPhone and iPad and just want to stay in the

ecosystem, and I don't blame them, it's a perfect fit for a basic home office or school laptop

Now, about performance, again, since this is a pre-production model on the XPS, I didn't run

our usual benchmarks for it. So fortunately, since the XPS 13 is now shipping, results are starting

to pop up online for the laptop and its Intel processor. Geekbench 6 is one of the tests we run

on laptops we review, and here you can see in the Geekbench 6 results database, there are results

for the XPS 13 scoring around 23, 2400 for single core and 59 to 6900 for multi-core performance

of the XPS 13's Intel Core 5 320 chip. When we tested the Neo we hit 3541 for single core and 8958 for multi on that test That makes the Neo A18 Pro look like the winner

and it very well might be, but you can see that the XPS 13 results posted

were done using the balanced power plan and not best performance. Also, if you look at other results for the Intel processor

you'll find results up over 8,000. So my guess is that for CPU performance

the XPS 13 and Neo will likely be so close that it won't make a significant difference

For battery life, Dell claims a battery life for up to 17 hours of streaming

and the Neo got 13 hours and 26 minutes on CNET's streaming video test

So it's likely these are probably going to be about the same for that too

I expect I'll get our review sample from Dell here soon enough and we'll know for sure

but based on the info currently available online, it looks like the XPS 13 will be just as good

as the Neo for basic computer tasks. But yeah, a lot of whether you go with the XPS 13

or the MacBook Neo is going to come down to ecosystem and whether you want or need the extra features Dell offers

or if you already have other Apple products and you just wanna stick with Apple

At the end of the day, it's just nice that we have two solid premium options

at this price, especially now that prices have shot up so much this year and they aren't going down anytime soon

So what do you think about the XPS 13 and the Neo? If you're an Apple fan, do you stick with the Neo or step outside and try the Dell

Let me know in the comments and you can read more about both of these laptops on our sites

And as always, thanks for watching