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Base Model MacBook Air With M2 Chip Has Slower SSD Speeds in Benchmarks

Quasi26 said:
View attachment 2029762
First, the speed notification is more than half way down the page and is hardly a huge selling point, second, they clearly footnote it with a link, and third the footnote lays out specifically what they are comparing with and to. It is literally right on the page.
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If only Apple clarified the 1.4x thing with a footnote of some kind.

Oh wait, they do:

Testing conducted by Apple in May 2022 using preproduction MacBook Air systems with Apple M2, 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU and 24GB of RAM, as well as production MacBook Air systems with Apple M1, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU and 16GB of RAM, all configured with 2TB SSD, as well as production 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-based MacBook Air systems with Intel UHD Graphics 617, 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD. Final Cut Pro 10.6.2 tested using a complex 2-minute project with 4K ProRes 422 media. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air
 
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Howard2k said:
If only Apple clarified the 1.4x thing with a footnote of some kind.

Oh wait, they do:

Testing conducted by Apple in May 2022 using preproduction MacBook Air systems with Apple M2, 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU and 24GB of RAM, as well as production MacBook Air systems with Apple M1, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU and 16GB of RAM, all configured with 2TB SSD, as well as production 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-based MacBook Air systems with Intel UHD Graphics 617, 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD. Final Cut Pro 10.6.2 tested using a complex 2-minute project with 4K ProRes 422 media. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air
Click to expand...
Thats my point, they footnote it in multiple places and even link the footnotes. Not only do they hardly care about the speed increase vs the other changes, but they tell you exactly the config they tested with.
 
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boak said:
Apple never claimed that 256 GB M2 MBAs have the "1.4x faster" performance you're talking about. The burden of proof is on you.
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So now “Up to 1.4x faster” can mean 50% slower if Apple needs a little more on its bottom line?

Please! You know exactly what they’re doing here. It’s completely misleading.

What consumer in there right mind would assume that a newer, more expensive version of a computer, that’s marketed with a big bold “up to 1.4x faster” has a “down to 50% slower” SSD?

The amount of apologizing in here is embarrassing.

Should Apple also slip a iPhone 14 in the lineup that’s “up to 1.4x faster” but is actually slower than the 13 because only those getting the 256gb 14 deserve a performance increase?

It said “up to 1.4”, everybody knows that could also mean “worse than ever”.

Lol.

You guys got it bad for Apple and for no reason at all. Embarrassing.
 
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Cognizant. said:
And battery life has increased with optimization, so something wasn’t lost, it was improved. Halving the SSD speed is not an improvement. Just because you don’t understand the issue or care doesn’t mean it’s not an issue.
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Ah, so you're saying that Apple managed to sell a better overall package despite an inferior specification. No different here.
 
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boak said:
Ah, so you're saying that Apple managed to sell a better overall package despite an inferior specification. No different here.
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This isn’t hard to understand. You’re intentionally being difficult. They’re not even remotely the same thing. We’re literally taking about raw speed here, which has nothing to do with battery life. Ignoring reality to try and stand behind your argument helps neither of us.
 
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ApplesAreSweet&Sour said:
So now “Up to 1.4x faster” can mean 50% slower if Apple needs a little more on its bottom line?

Please! You know exactly what they’re doing here. It’s completely misleading.

What consumer in there right mind would assume that a newer, more expensive version of a computer, that’s marketed with a big bold “up to 1.4x faster” has a “down to 50% slower” SSD?

The amount of apologizing in here is embarrassing.

Should Apple also slip a iPhone 14 in the lineup that’s “up to 1.4x faster” but is actually slower than the 13 because only those getting the 256gb 14 deserve a performance increase?

It said “up to 1.4”, everybody knows that could also mean “worse than ever”.

Lol.

You guys got it bad for Apple and for no reason at all. Embarrassing.
Click to expand...
The 1.4x here is not even about the SSD lol. It's about the M2 chip itself.
 
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Cognizant. said:
You can’t be this deluded? This isn’t hard to understand. You’re intentionally being difficult. They’re not even remotely the same thing. We’re literally taking about raw speed here, which has nothing to do with battery life. Ignoring reality to try and stand behind your argument helps neither of us.
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You can't be this deluded to think that an argument has to use the exact scenario and analogies can't be used 💀
 
Apple can put a super slow SSD in there compared to the M1 MBA if they want to. It's unfortunate, yes but there's nothing technically wrong about that. If the new device is not up to your expectations, just don't buy it. Simple.
 
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If your workload is important enough where the little difference in completion time matters on the SSD, you probably shouldn't be getting the base model anyway.
 
ProfessionalFan said:
If your workload is important enough where the little difference in completion time matters on the SSD, you probably shouldn't be getting the base model anyway.
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Again, this isn’t the issue. Most people aren’t going to take full advantage of the speed of their Macs. Should they just buy a crappy Windows computer to meet the needs instead?
 
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ApplesAreSweet&Sour said:
It’s not a matter of “nobody needs it”.

It’s a matter of Apple repeatedly using numbers like “1.4x faster than M1” across all marketing and the product website for the M2 Air.

There’s no asterisk or number leading you to a footnote where the difference in SSD speeds is explained. No mention or indication of the downgrade in any official Apple text on these M2 machines.

It’s just plain misleading.
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How is it misleading? They’re talking about the system as a whole, not one component. That’s the more important number, nobody is *just* using disk, an MBA isnt a NAS…
 
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