Neo has ~5 more years of support, is not US specific from a specific store,comes at $100 off for students (which is a primary target for the product), and many of the things you say are worse often are a balance of tradeoffs in many ways (e.g. the screen on the Neo is definitely brighter).

I had an M1 MacBook Air and just set a Neo up for my niece. If I had to pick between the two for myself I'd choose the Neo again.