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On the SSD issue, the "most people will not notice it" people miss the point. The point is whether customers are getting what they pay for or know what they are getting.

"Most people" will think they are paying for a better and faster machine. It is a reasonable assumption. Since it's newer they'd expect everything to be the same or better.

Since it's called M2 vs M1, they'd expect the chip to be faster without having other components drag it back down.

"Most people" will not know they are not getting what they pay for. "Most people will not notice it" actually makes it worse. It makes this seem like a form of fraud.
People making those moronic arguments are the same who blindly buy anything they put out day 1, this is exactly for them.
 
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Most of the people I know (and people that I know come to me for tech advice) - use free OneDrive/Google Drive storage and they're good. It's usually us techies that have terabytes of storage that we need to save/keep.

And those on the high end of storage requirements (but not techie level) usually have most of their storage in a photo storage app like Google or iCloud. (I know several couples where their iCloud Storage is 1-1.5TB of iCloud photos of their kids/etc) - optimized storage locally.

Work wise, everything is cloud storage now (O365). IMO we're heading back to thin clients again.
Yeah most docs are pretty small and mine are at least mirrored in the cloud. I have OneDrive with O365 and a big iCloud drive and (I think!) a google drive, but it's crap for music production when I want sample libraries with low latency or I'm just out and about wanting to play tunes or DJ or the rare cases I want to work with video. My iPad Pro I got 1 TB which was a total waste (I originally intended to do a lot more with it til I realised it wasn't doable) and that must have nearly 256 GB used and it's not really "got anything on" - although to be fair I could probably offload quite a bit of that. I guess this is just pointing out I'm not a regular user.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned too. I like all my important files on my computer and backed up locally by me. I don't trust the internet to always work. It does the vast majority of the time, but the few times it doesn't I'm screwed, and if I'm out and about with my laptop I can never depend on fast internet everywhere. I'm definitely not gonna get 7.4GB/s read speeds from the cloud via my phone in the middle of the countryside or in a basement with crap cellular signal! 🤣
 
I love how this story keeps getting headlines and how we are all falling for the clickbait.

No-one should be upgrading from M1 to M2 for more performance. If your M1 is too slow, an M2 won’t help - you will need an M1 Pro/Max/Ultra not an M2.

Anyone upgrading from an Intel machine will be delighted with the performance.

Sure it’s slower in some circumstances, but people don’t buy MacBook Airs for heavy workloads. They buy it for everyday general computing needs and it M2 8/256 will serve them well.
 
Yeah, I would love to see whether it's better to buy close-to-base models every 2-3 years or future-proof for the next 10 years.
So this is an awesome topic. My wife and I started out in 2015 buying the base Airs and using them for a few years then upgrading. 2017 we bought a midline MBP and noticed the enjoyment factor was a lot more. In 2022 I finally went loaded M1 max and ... yeah... I can say that the enjoyment factor is 6x a base MBA for me. Of course price difference is crazy and I can use it for work if I want.

We got a base MBA from Best Buy for like $700 in 2015.
Midline MBP in 2017 was $2800.
And of course the loaded M1 is more than double the 2017.

So let's say $950 every 2 years vs $2800 every 3-5 years (my wife is still using her 2017 MBP today).

The price difference isn't all that much once you start going out that far, especially if you trade in.

We traded in our 2015 MBAs for almost 50% of what we paid for them. About 40% for my 2017 MBP.

I noticed the resale on the M1 Max is bad... lol. So if you're looking to save $, near base models and trying to keep them for 3 years is probably best. All depends on what you do I guess. :D

I'm planning on keeping the M1 Max for 5+ years if I can. It'll be the first laptop that I even want to attempt that in.
 
So this is an awesome topic. My wife and I started out in 2015 buying the base Airs and using them for a few years then upgrading. 2017 we bought a midline MBP and noticed the enjoyment factor was a lot more. In 2022 I finally went loaded M1 max and ... yeah... I can say that the enjoyment factor is 6x a base MBA for me. Of course price difference is crazy and I can use it for work if I want.

We got a base MBA from Best Buy for like $700 in 2015.
Midline MBP in 2017 was $2800.
And of course the loaded M1 is more than double the 2017.

So let's say $950 every 2 years vs $2800 every 3-5 years (my wife is still using her 2017 MBP today).

The price difference isn't all that much once you start going out that far, especially if you trade in.

We traded in our 2015 MBAs for almost 50% of what we paid for them. About 40% for my 2017 MBP.

I noticed the resale on the M1 Max is bad... lol. So if you're looking to save $, near base models and trying to keep them for 3 years is probably best. All depends on what you do I guess. :D

I'm planning on keeping the M1 Max for 5+ years if I can. It'll be the first laptop that I even want to attempt that in.
That was my guess because "upgrades" typically lose a lot of resale value.

Thanks for the real-life example.
 
Yeah most docs are pretty small and mine are at least mirrored in the cloud. I have OneDrive with O365 and a big iCloud drive and (I think!) a google drive, but it's crap for music production when I want sample libraries with low latency or I'm just out and about wanting to play tunes or DJ or the rare cases I want to work with video. My iPad Pro I got 1 TB which was a total waste (I originally intended to do a lot more with it til I realised it wasn't doable) and that must have nearly 256 GB used and it's not really "got anything on" - although to be fair I could probably offload quite a bit of that. I guess this is just pointing out I'm not a regular user.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned too. I like all my important files on my computer and backed up locally by me. I don't trust the internet to always work. It does the vast majority of the time, but the few times it doesn't I'm screwed, and if I'm out and about with my laptop I can never depend on fast internet everywhere. I'm definitely not gonna get 7.4GB/s read speeds from the cloud via my phone in the middle of the countryside or in a basement with crap cellular signal! 🤣
Completely agree. Yeah, up till this year I always got base to 256GB storage cuz that's all I could afford. 2022- my M1 Max now has 4TB and it has been amazing not having to hook up NVME drives up for running virtual machines, lol. I too am finding less and less trust in the cloud. I could never rely on the cloud 100%. I do like iCloud for a backup checkbox and I have FIOS but nothing beats the speed of local storage when working with massive datasets - it's a must.

Yep - here in CA especially we're dealing with a lot more power outages than I ever remember (I'm 36). I got a 4TB spinner for the big stuff, a 1TB SSD for quick time machine backups (only backing up about 300GB), and sold my NVME when I got my M1 Max. lol.
 
Time to switch to a different computer manufacturer with a better product. Happiness can be found by simply stepping up and making the change.

Will you do it?
Good idea.
I’ve heard those surface books are getting real good, I think I’ll try one of those out.
It’ll be a nice change from Apple and their evil slow SSD ways…
Oh wait…
 
I don't understand all the fuss here. Aren't the lower storage iPhones impacted with the slower speeds as well? I believe Apple mentioned this a while back in an effort to be transparent.
 
I don't understand all the fuss here. Aren't the lower storage iPhones impacted with the slower speeds as well? I believe Apple mentioned this a while back in an effort to be transparent.
Not half the speed. And so why doesn't Apple be transparent here? Why leave it up to reviewers and benchmarks to expose them? Very sus. The more defenders make us think about this, the worse and worse this seems.
 
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Blown way out of proportion. Vast majority of users won't notice any difference.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through. -Steve Jobs
 
Let me add a little bit more information about using one chip for RAM and SSD.

Using only one chip not only hammers sequential read write, but random read write as well. During day to day use, programs and system read write small files all the time. Having r/w distributed to two chips double random read write speed, which also helps the performance and overall experience of daily use. Not to mention having two chips also help with wear leveling. Keep in mind, as soon as internal drive dies, your Mac is an expensive piece of paperweight unless being serviced by Apple.

Anyone who claims this issue being blown out of proportion either don’t notice this aspect or don’t care, which then allows Apple to get away with lower cost component while charging more for less. Apple has controlled the high end market mainly because customers collectively let them, not just for their “high quality” products.
 
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