Summary
Dell’s new XPS 13 now costs the same $699 as Apple’s MacBook Neo, and developer Alex Ziskind puts the two budget laptops through a series of coding-focused tests to see which is the better machine for programmers.
The XPS 13 has Intel’s new Core i5 chip, 8 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. The MacBook Neo has an A18 Pro chip, 8 GB of memory and a 256 GB SSD, and no fan. The video compares design and hardware details such as the backlit keyboard, 120 Hz touchscreen, trackpad, ports and removable storage. It then measures SSD speeds. The Dell reaches about 6,860 MB/s sequential reads, against 1,735 MB/s for the Neo.
The performance tests include a multi-core Python Mandelbrot benchmark, where the XPS finished in roughly 57 to 67 seconds against about 90 seconds for the Neo, both plugged in and on battery. Ziskind also compiles llama.cpp, the popular open-source AI inference engine, which took about 3 minutes 28 seconds on the XPS and 4 minutes on the Neo. A back-to-back stress test shows how the fanless Neo copes with sustained load.
📺 Source: Alex Ziskind · Published October 27, 2026
🏷️ Format: Comparison
