There’s a lot of patronising stuff in here — I don’t think that’s particularly kind of you. Be better.
You speak like someone who thinks they know more about these things than you actually do. I have no problem with people who know these things. I also have no problem with people that don't know these things. But people that speak like they know much more than they do (as is evident by the actual things they say)? Those people are taxing. Enough to make the kindest people get unreasonably angry. So, I say back to you: Be better.
As for the content of your message — there’s a lot of points you’re making that I don’t disagree with. Of course, the SSD can be a bottleneck. Yes, I have owned and used spinning drives — of course they are slower. But are you trying to imply that the M2 256GB harddrive is as slow as an HDD?
Nope. Never said that. I said that a slow disk will take all of the performance benefits you cited from Apple's marketing pages that the M2 has over the M1 and render them moot. This has been demoed by many reviewers and testers.
Or that the distinction in “system performance” between 256GB and 512GB M2 is as noticeable as between an SSD and an HDD? Because, if you are, then I don’t know what to say to you.
Again, didn't ever say that. You are definitely putting words in my mouth.
In the video below, they are responding to not only the kinds of reviews you just linked, but also the backlash from Apple fans that are in denial that Apple could possibly cheap out on the 256GB SSD.Finally, you’re claiming “there are plenty of people out there…” Well, there are also plenty of people out there pitting the M2 base against the M2 24GB 1TB, and coming to the conclusion it takes quite a bit of a battering to get to the point where the M2 base is noticeably slower. This one for example:
This is not to discredit the clip you linked to, nor to suggest that someone who doesn't do much with their computer won't have a perfectly okay time on Apple's 256GB drives for those Macs. But, if it's my hard-earned money AND that much of it, I'm not buying a drive that is subpar compared to one that is in the predecessor product. These things cost too much to make those kinds of concessions even if I just so happen to be lucky and have a use case for the Mac that won't be as affected by the cheaper/weaker drive.
If you don’t want to talk about benchmarks for CPU or GPU, or about rendering performance, then what you’re really asking is how snappy does the machine feel. If you’re already convinced the M2 base is slower than the M1 base, I’m not surprised you find it easy to gather evidence for that fact.
You take the two SoCs in a vacuum, give them ample cooling and a decent SSD, there is no question in my mind about the M2 being more performant than the M1.
But yes, what we're talking about here isn't the SoC itself. It's the systems that they go into. I'd imagine that an M2 13" MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD will outperform an M1 13" MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. My point to you is that a M2 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD is shown, again, by TONS of videos and legitimate reviewers, to be outperformed by the M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Those are facts. Whether or not those things matter to you, whether or not you think those things outweigh all of the other things that an M2 MacBook Air brings to the table, whether or not you think that it's a better overall package; all of these things are 100% irrelevant to the forum topic.
I didn’t feel that way after using both at all.
Good for you?
You are doing that thing that every Apple fan does when a new design of Apple product is launched and suddenly it's almost as though the new design is unilaterally an upgrade over the predecessor design like it's the launch of an entirely new and game changing product. This is much more of a cult-like behavior than the act of nay-saying and saying that it's not that big of an improvement.Finally, I do think you’re being disingenuous calling the only upside of the M2 the “better webcam” or the “stupid design from a year ago instead of the stupid design from four years ago”. From the way you speak about this machine, I wonder whether all the religion to attribute to me for defending this machine is actually as appropriately attributed to you.
For the record, I'm not the hugest fan of the notch, nor the rounded screen corners, but I'm otherwise ambivalent. "Religious" and "Ambivalent" generally don't go together in the same sentence when speaking of something being part of one's religion; though I do appreciate your concern.
I just don't see the M2 Air as all that much of a step up from its predecessor. Again, a better webcam and MagSafe 3 are both nice additions, but this isn't that substantial of an upgrade over its predecessor otherwise (if it was, I'd be getting one).