not faster, just the same , at the very least
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15-Inch MacBook Air With 256GB Storage Has Slower SSD Speeds Than Higher-Capacity Models
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Real world use for me, SSD speed feels the same as my previous 14" MacBook Pro M1 with a faster SSD. People get so hung up on benchmarks when the vast majority would never tell a difference.
Well, some people have more money than sense.
The performance of the M2 chip is already known, and the speakers are not determining factors. People who already want the 15” Air are going to buy it, and people who are considering the machine aren’t going to be swayed by the speakers.
Many people were waiting to order the machine because it was unclear whether the 15” would suffer the same performance issues due to a single nand chip. So going straight to this before anything else makes a lot of sense.
And those that already want the 15", along with many others, aren't going to be swayed by some bogus "performance issue," and buy I anyway.
No. Going straight to this is clickbait. They took the computer apart before doing a review and could have compromised the performance. Today they put out a review. They could have easily done the review first, then released their clickbait video.
Look, I get it, they survive on those clicks. I don’t necessarily blame them for going for the cash, but they have enough of a following at this point that they really didn’t need to do it this way.
256 GB storage and 8 GB RAM in 2023? come on apple for that price, 512 and 16 gigs of ram should be standard.
8GB and 255GB in 2023 is a slap in the face. STOP BEING GREEDY APPLE!!
I am totally for Apple screwing us, but could they do it in a better way, like for example post purchase upgrading so that I can over a couple of years upgrade, I would happily pay to play, pay Apple to replace the battery, the RAM, a faster SSD... I truly hate my 2020 M1 Macbook Air, it sucks, as it is just really a toy, for what it cost, it should be at least a bit better than a 2013 macbook pro... M1 is stupid..
We don't merely upgrade or maintain performance! When it benefits the user we'll downgrade it too! If you don't see how ridiculous that is we must be living in very different realities.
Saving costs? The M1 Air is literally the cheapest Macbook that Apple sells, Apple even just reduced the price, and that has a faster SSD. Apple explicitely advertised that faster SSD on the M1 Air too. Why would Apple even mention that if they thought it didn't add any "real value"?
I live in a reality where the overall performance counts, and don’t get all worked up over one measurement that has no impact on 99% of teh purchasers of the base machine.
Apple has no doubt amortized much of the development costs and reduced supply chain costs to allow a price reduction and maintain margins; not atypical for older devices.
Because at the time AS was new and they wanted to highlight all the reasons to buy one.
If the idea of a slower SSD bothers you, don’t buy the base M1 Air and let those who care about how it does the job overall buy them If it meets their needs.
Frankly, this whole “slower SSD” is clickbait for YouTubers and web sites.
The NAND chips are literally the same if you look at teardowns. There is no extra cost. No development cost, nobody needs to redesign flash modules just because the SoC was switched to M2. You could just as well say that a faster SSD would have eaten little children, it would be another claim with nothing to back it up.
so you are saying 128 chip is identical to a 256? And 256 cost the same as a 128?
As to development costs, it was in reference to amortized M1 Air costs.
Of courses why is this news? I remember several years ago when I bought a 128GB Surface Pro and I read about the higher capacities having faster speeds. I exchanged it for a higher capacity. I really didn't need to for my uses but it still bugged me.
It's unreasonable that they're still selling computers with 256GB storage
That is not what this is. It's as if you had bought that Surface and then replaced it a year later with the successor and found that the 128GB in the new device were now an extra 40% slower than on your old model.
Oh, I agree that they need more Storage and RAM…my first MacBook Pro from 10 years ago was 256 Gb and 8Gb of RAM. That said, its not a huge issue for me, because I easily make 256 Gb work, because I work with files like I do with my iPad Pro, where I offload all the files I’m done with either on a external drive or in the cloud. My storage in always about 50% full
Why? 256 is plenty for a lot of people. If all you do is browse the internet and work with basic text files and spreadsheets, do some emailing, etc (a perfectly plausible use case for a MacBook Air) then 256GB is heaps.
It's not like that's your upper limit, you can get more if you need more.
This was highly expected, nothing surprising here. Since that was the exact same case with the 13" M2 MacBook Air and the 13" M2 MacBook Pro models, and the 15" model is just a copy of the 13" model with a bigger screen so it makes sense.
But who really cares about SSD speeds anyways ? I mean, for most of the basic daily stuff you'd do on a laptop, it's not really a big deal and you wouldn't even notice that it's any slower or something.
And if you're a power high-end user, you'd most likely go for the 14" & 16" MacBook Pro models anyways, since the MacBook Air is more targeted as a "consumer product".
Though I still kinda feel like the switch to a single 256gb NAND chip instead of two 128gb modules (from M1 to M2) was just another way to make money off people by making them go for the 512gb SSD/16gb RAM option even if they don't really need it.
"But hey look, it has a faster SSD !! Interesting, huh ?"
But who really cares about SSD speeds anyways ? I mean, for most of the basic daily stuff you'd do on a laptop, it's not really a big deal and you wouldn't even notice that it's any slower or something.
And if you're a power high-end user, you'd most likely go for the 14" & 16" MacBook Pro models anyways, since the MacBook Air is more targeted as a "consumer product".
Though I still kinda feel like the switch to a single 256gb NAND chip instead of two 128gb modules (from M1 to M2) was just another way to make money off people by making them go for the 512gb SSD/16gb RAM option even if they don't really need it.
"But hey look, it has a faster SSD !! Interesting, huh ?"
I only bought the 13" M2 MBP just because I'm not really a big fan of the new design with the notch on screen (and I don't really need the 1080p webcam either) but otherwise, yeah I agree. If they both had the same design, I would've just gone for the 13" MBA.
There's no difference between them aside from the TouchBar and the two extra hours of battery life, which don't really matter. And on terms of performance, it's literally the same.