Is it possible that, for most work, my new MacBook Neo will be faster than my old MacBook Pro M1?
I asked gemini and it said yes; but it also said I should upgrade the neo to 16GB RAM if I haven’t bought it yet.
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The single-core performance of the Neo’s A18 Pro ranks between the M3 and the M4. The multicore performance is a different story.
Upgrading to 16 GB RAM always does make sense.
If you are using the Neo as a laptop without too many graphics-intensive tasks and doing mostly stuff that makes use of its single-core performance, the Neo will be a fine machine, especially with 16 GB.
EDIT: There is no option to upgrade to 16 GB. This is LLM nonsense. The A18 Pro comes with 8 GB with no option to change anything with regards to RAM. Thank you, @zkarj, for the correction. I got confused with the SSD’s upgrade option to 512 GB and apparently was not fully awake to realize the faulty AI output regarding the RAM.
A long-running German PC/Windows blog has tried to answer your question, whether to buy a Neo or a used MacBook Pro M1 (Der Vergleich: Neues MacBook Neo oder gebrauchtes MacBook Pro M1?):
- Single Core: the Neo is about 50% faster
- the MacBook Pro M1’s SSD is faster
- the MacBook Pro M1 is 30% faster when it comes to MultiCore performance
- the Pro M1 consistently leads the pack in both Geekbench Metal and 3DMark when it comes down to graphics performance
- the Pro M1 supports Thunderbolt and high-performance docking setups, including high-resolution displays, while the Neo is lacking Thunderbolt and offering limited display support
Their final say:
The MacBook Neo is particularly well-suited for everyday use and web apps, offering users a lightweight, quiet system. The MacBook Pro M1 remains the recommended choice for computationally intensive applications, graphics-heavy tasks, fast data processing, and demanding workstation setups—provided you’re willing to buy a used device.
There is no clear winner. The key factor is whether your everyday needs prioritize single-core speed and efficiency or multi-core performance, graphics power, and connectivity options.
If in doubt, used/refurbished MacBook Pros may be a good option, too.
A side note: It is interesting how many non-Mac users are thinking about buying a Mac right now…
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Except when it’s impossible. The Neo has 8GB of RAM. No choice.
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I hate AI (so much for the intelligence…). 
Thank you for the correction and mentioning the obvious.
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But have you not read comments by AI tech executives and others that AI will become superintelligent and do all our work for us, assuming it does not first become conscious, take over the world, and enslave us? 
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It’s ironic that these same individuals are utterly failing the Turing Test. People are being deceived by the impressive communication abilities of LLMs, leading them to interpret the output far beyond its actual meaning.
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Exactly this (well, I failed this morning, too). 
As long as LLMs are used as tools whose output is checked for accuracy point by point by a human, I am fine with them. If answers from LLMs are simply being accepted without verification, they become a curse that achieves the opposite of what LLMs were intended to achieve in the first place: incorrect answers, a loss of efficiency, and a source for further errors, because their answers are often published verbatim online and serve as a source for more nonsense to come. I am going off on a tangent. Sorry.
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Controversial take but I think the M1 is dead as a good value product.
People either want to save money in which case going with the Neo will give them presumably many more years of support and thus lower yearly cost (while being likely faster for anybody doing undemanding tasks), or they want performance, in which case a newer or higher end machine than the M1 will give them significantly more performance/niceties per dollar.
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