Didn’t read this whole thread but is the 512gb dual chips or single like the m2 14/16 pro’s?
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15-Inch MacBook Air With 256GB Storage Has Slower SSD Speeds Than Higher-Capacity Models
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You're crazy.
It's because it's not even as fast as previous gen M1 MacBook Air. That's the only reason they don't advertise it. Apple can't legally say M2 is "up to 2X faster" as Intel because it's no longer true for all configurations. They would have to advertise it as "up to 0.5X speed."
Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
MacBook Air features a new, strikingly thin design in four finishes, 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, 1080p HD camera, MagSafe charging, and more.
www.apple.com
EDIT: Not sure what happened there, I tried to edit my post and somehow deleted it and can't quote again. Anyway, here goes:
@JPack I'm confused at what your screenshot is supposed to be showing? The absence of talking about storage speed?
Either way, almost every config of the M2 Airs is as fast as the M1 models excluding the base config. It's a non-issue. You know about it, so don't buy the base config. Simple.
Would it be better if it wasn't the case and all machines had the dual chip config? Absolutely. But is it something that's going to meaningfully impact the people buying the base Air model? I highly doubt it.
@JPack I'm confused at what your screenshot is supposed to be showing? The absence of talking about storage speed?
Either way, almost every config of the M2 Airs is as fast as the M1 models excluding the base config. It's a non-issue. You know about it, so don't buy the base config. Simple.
Would it be better if it wasn't the case and all machines had the dual chip config? Absolutely. But is it something that's going to meaningfully impact the people buying the base Air model? I highly doubt it.
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The screenshot is just to show Apple continues to compare against Intel, even today with the 15-inch model.
Apple hasn't forgotten about beating up Intel. What's different is the missing highlighted text, which exists in the M1 Air press release. That sentence doesn't have any qualifiers or superscript, meaning every M1 Air configuration whether 256GB or 2TB is "up to 2x faster SSD performance."
However, with M2 Air, that sentence no longer exists.
Haha, this Apple SSD thing, not the first to do it, back in the day, Sir Clive Sinclair did this with the ZX Spectrum, the 16K RAM modules were very expensive, but faulty 48K module were cheap, as they were faulty, so just use the 16K that worked, and he installed those into the computer...
Would you buy a cheaper laptop that had "more/faster" SSD and pay the Apple Tax to upgrade? The only thing you were buying was a line of code that unlocked the 50% of the SSD locked out?? Maybe Apple should try... [Being sarcastic a bit..!!!]
Would you buy a cheaper laptop that had "more/faster" SSD and pay the Apple Tax to upgrade? The only thing you were buying was a line of code that unlocked the 50% of the SSD locked out?? Maybe Apple should try... [Being sarcastic a bit..!!!]
I guess I'm just failing to see why it's such a big deal. The SSDs are still fast, the performance is still fine for basically any tasks you'd expect someone on a base spec machine to do, and they're not making claims that it's better than it is (as you point out above). So... what's the issue?
Yeah, the people who would care are smart enough to get more than 256 GB. Heck, I'm almost out of my 1 TB.
My original response was to someone who claimed Apple never touted the speed of their SSD as a selling point.
In general, you expect performance improvements with every newer product generation, or at least the same. Someone using a base spec machine may run out of RAM, which leads to hitting swap.
Was definitely expecting this. Not surprised.
Sure, it's fair to expect improvements, but blindly buying something without verifying that it actually has those improvements is a recipe for hurt. I guess I could see dipping into swap as a potential issue, but if they're going heavily into swap often enough then they've likely bought the wrong machine for their needs, and if it only happens occasionally I doubt think most people would even notice.
I dunno, maybe I'm being too lenient on Apple here, but I have yet to hear from anyone who has an 8GB M2 machine who's actually been impacted by this, whether in forums or from the people I know who use them in real life. It's always people who have specced up machines outraged on behalf of a theoretical user.
Totally, but they should pick a standard and stick to it. The flip-flopping between M1 and Intel comparisons muddies the water, and comparing to what are now 3+year old machines isn't the flex it was when they first launched Apple Silicon.
Yeah, I have a relative who got an early 2020 MBA, OOOF.
OK, you're right. I'm sorry. How about this idea Timothy: NO onboard stoarage at all!!! Isn't that a wonderful idea Timothy? All storage in the cloud, at just $3.99 per Gigabyte, per month? Apple can be even more the most successful tech company then. Isn't that great?
[sarcasm]
Who cares that it has a slower SSD? The most important thing is that Apple is making more profits by including the slower SSD. It's more important that Apple shareholders' profits increase than to provide Apple users with the best products. Tim Cook is an excellent CEO.
[/sarcasm]
Who cares that it has a slower SSD? The most important thing is that Apple is making more profits by including the slower SSD. It's more important that Apple shareholders' profits increase than to provide Apple users with the best products. Tim Cook is an excellent CEO.
[/sarcasm]
We're watching a new IBM timeline unfolding right in front of us, right in fromt of everyone. All the "experts" will claim, in hindsight years from now, how obvious it all was at the time. How odd no one saw what was coming. OK. The more things stay the same, the more they stay the same.
I'm not sure you understand anything of what you wrote.
An M1 Max is far superior than a base M2 found in the Air.
Everything on the Pro laptop is also better from the screen refresh rates, screen brightness, SSD bandwidth, speakers etc.
So your "latest and greatest" comment doesn't apply because you're not comparing the same teir of product.
And explain this, because you wanted a larger screen, you upgraded your CPU from a Pro to a Max? That also makes no sense.
You would be banned decision making in my house hold.
conceptually this is good for consumers as it encourages people to invest in more storage to improve their overall experience.
Was too tired to answer, glad you don't need me answering the first point anymore
It's not dumb, it allows them to show off the big numbers, what do you think
As for your second point, it affects swap too, check out for yourself , the difference is perceptible (euphemism or not, idk)
And yeah i mean people wouldn't notice and wouldn't be that bothered if they kept the same performance (CPU that is) either, is that a reason to keep it the same ? No it's not
Furthermore this is an actual downgrade, not just something they kept as is without upgrading
Aaaaanyway
Max Tech is great and highly informative for potential buyers. Their content is also to a high standard when it comes to new hardware. Apple doesn't advertise SSD speeds anywhere, so at least content creators provide that information. For some people, it matters.
Yeah, the bigger number makes sense in that regard but overall it makes the page more confusing (hell, I'm fairly tech-literate and come from an advertising background and even I need to check the footnotes to confirm what they're comparing to half the time because it's such a mess).
As for the actual downgrade bit, it's only a downgrade if you're coming from an M1 Air (and why would you, the difference in performance is negligible) and even then it's only for a fraction of the people buying these machines. Like I said elsewhere, it would be great if the read/write speeds were the same across the board for the M2 machines, but I think it's an issue that's been blown waaaay out of proportion and I have yet to personally encounter anyone who claims they've been impacted by it (not that that's the standard an issue has to meet to be valid or anything, it's just an observation).
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It is fine, if someone notices, just go on restaurant-rumors.com and keep making posts saying it is a non-issue.
Imagine if the M2 chip was slower than the M1. Would you then say it's not a big deal, still plenty fast? As was shown in this thread Apple advertised the improved SSD speeds for the M1 Air and then quietly dropped that for the M2 model. What if Apple updated the Air to M3 without any big announcement or presentation, no claims about speed improvements. You'd still assume by default that the M3 Air will be at least somewhat faster than M2 Air, right? And it will be, because Apple knows it would be absurd to release a newer model that is slower than the old one. Yet that is exactly what they did with the M2 Air's storage.
This is something other manufacturers have been doing for a long time now, you'd read a review of a device and when you actually bought it months later, it came with cheaper and sometimes worse performing components that technically still adhered to the advertised specs because the specs were quietly changed on their website in some obscure place.
SSD manufacturers are notorious for doing this, you have a SSD model with a specific model number and if you buy 3 of them, you might find that each one has entirely different hardware (controller as well as NAND storage chips) and is literally a different SSD with different performance. Western Digital did this with their SN550 for example, the later ones cut the performance in half just like Apple did here.