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Base 13-Inch MacBook Pro With M2 Chip Has Significantly Slower SSD Speeds
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Essentially next to no r&d for the 13" Pro (apart from the M2 chip itself) and then much cheaper SSDs? The 256GB has to be a complete cash grab by comparison to the M1 version.
Any consumer who has shopped for NAND drives knows how much the price jumps once you go for the high-end ones.
I sure hope the entry-level 256GB M2 Air has more to offer at $1199 since it didn't stay at the $999 the M1 Air launched at.
The cynical part of me thinks it will (and that buyers will be paying for the new screen, webcam and overall design moreso than they will a solid SSD)
The apologists need to zip it for this one.
I mean, it's obvious that nobody expected a lot from what looked to be nothing more than yet another conservatively spec bumped version of 2-year-old MacBook, the only Apple product still featuring the Touch Bar that so many detest.
But swapping the internal SSD for one that's about 50% slower warrants all the outrage particularly considering how it's marketed as "Faster than ever." with numbers like "1.4x" faster than M1.
If Apple had maybe lowered the price for the 256GB models to $999-$1199 then the SSD swap would have been more acceptable.
But it's the same $1299 as the M1 version while the SSD is now factually proven to be a significantly cheaper and less capable.
No bueno.
From the very conservative gains we actually see from the standard M1 to M2 chips out of context of what machine they sit in, it gets even less if the M2's performance is halted whenever it comes to reading and writing to the SSD.
That's a very bad Apple, as Brian Tong would put it.
this is the problem with continuing to have 256gb as lowest size. I’ll bet they can’t get those 128gb chips anymore because who’d want them? Put 512 in there as the base config and charge the same. It’s been YEARS of 256
Apple, wtf are you doing…selling an old design with antiquated features like the touchbar, with underwhelming specs like 8gb ram and 256gb ssd, at full price, and skimping on the storage speed too….this is insulting
Well, I wouldn't want to attribute any particular change to Jobs vs. Cook, but I remember the days when:
- Macs and iPods came with a cleaning cloth in the box
- Chargers came complete with charge cables and extension cords
- The iPod/Phone dock came complete with a USB charger, cable and plastic inserts to accept all current iPod/iPhone models
- Macs came with things like DVI to VGA adapters in the box
It's also worth remembering that, during much of the Jobs era, RAM and HD were usually easily user-upgradeable, so you only paid the BTO prices in ignorance or if somebody else was paying - that's pretty much gone now.
However, I think this case is evidence of particularly cynical corner-cutting: it looks like performance has been deliberately compromised when the truth is it shouldn't make economic sense to produce a 256GB model of a >$1000 computer. An earlier poster hit the nail on the head: 128GB fast-Flash chips (of this type and speed) are probably scarce/expensive/non-existent because the demand isn't there with the majority of new laptops in the $1000+ class coming with at least 512GB (probably as 2x256GB). So Apple have used a single 256GB module in a system designed to use two in parallel...
It could be a genuine 128GB parts supply issue, in fairness. But in any case I believe at the very least they should have prominently published the read/write speeds at the launch and made it very clear to potential buyers that the 256GB models featured slower storage. There would then be no controversy and indeed they’d probably have upsold more 512GB builds to people who were on the fence vis-à-vis specs to order.
Yep. Apple is the king of pricing strategy and getting you to spend more $ because of the enticing upsell.
Exactly.
Trillion dollar tech giants are first in line for all components as their capital(buying power) and connections within the industry are surpassed by no one.
If Apple wasn't that then there had been chip shortage induced delays to Apple's product release schedule lasting years, not the occasional month or two.
Apple answers to its' shareholders first, that's why we see both arbitrary things like frame rate limits for the 128GB 13s Pro, no Center Stage for <M1 iPads, but also cheaper components in certain configurations of products that the average (unassuming) consumer would assume don't make a huge impact on overall performance.
Why would you buy something newer that's slower and more expensive than a discounted M1 13" MBP?
and now that Apple has pulled off this M2 slower SSD stunt, you know every single review for the M3 will first hyper focus on one thing: SSD speed. You did it to yourself Apple!I think the MBP M2 is like a filler episode of a bad tv series- pointless. I have the m1 mbp and so far its fine for my needs. I still rely on my mac pro 5.1 that i upgraded for some heavy lifting when i need it. Will wait for M3 days and maybe hoping that software will catch up too as it seems the theme is that developers are slow in matching hardware performance of the new m chips with their software.
Yeah, well, only tech blog commenters care about this stuff. Oh the outrage, the gnashing of teeth, the derision of Tim Cook. And the model will sell very well even though tech blog denizens pan it. Such is reality.
Entitlement culture.
I have no problem with people reporting on this and informing potential buyers. But the anger displayed by commenters on forums like this-- who already proudly proclaimed they would never buy this product and therefore completely unaffected by SSD read/write speeds-- is typical of the times we live in. (I am also guessing that most commentators don't know the read/write speeds of their current devices)
This is terrible news. Hopefully the new MacBook Air will not end up having lower SSD speed.
Maybe their "Pro" stands for "Pro"blem.
Apple doesn't care, because they give well-specced machines (usually 1TB SSD) as review units, so most reviewers wouldn't even touch the issue (and most current tech reviewers won't know any better). Besides, reviewers who do know would downplay it just so they can continue getting review units. It's a self patting circle.
And since apple already got away with using SSD speed performance as one of the excuses to cut off new features on previous gen devices, expect the same reasoning to be used again. I'd expect there will be some random feature in macOS15 or 16 that won't be enabled on these M2 laptops because the SSD performance is not up to Apple's "satisfaction."
It's a hardware thing. It's missing a second NAND chip. No software tweaks can fix it.
Yup, Apple should disclose the performance discrepancy between configs.
I smell a lawsuit coming.