M3 MacBook Air Teardown Shows Apple Fixed Base Model's Biggest Flaw

[Johnny907]

I know it's been beaten to death in the year or so since the M2 came out. But I question just how much this means in the real world. Obviously for the price of these machines you don't want any compromises and I get that. But realistically...I didn't buy into the SSD speed boogeyman.

So it matters especially with the base model specifically because of the limited RAM, which Apple gets around by relying on swapfiles on the SSD. Since MacOS is using the SSD as a virtual extended RAM, SSD speed makes a noticeable difference even when loading 8 or more web tabs while watching a Youtube video. It becomes more noticeable as time goes on and websites become more and more memory intensive as they evolve. Taking the relatively inexpensive step of reconfiguring the SSD layout on the base M3 ensures increased longevity compared to the M2, which is important for a device that cannot be upgraded down the road like older Macs.

 

[Fuzzball84]

Im just still amazed its cooling solution is just a thin sheet of metal/foil.

I have an M2 Air and it's fine, it runs cool. Im just amazed how cool it runs on regular tasks.

 

[Antoniosmalakia]

Apple charge such a premium for the SSD chips so scrimping on them was a really ****** thing to do.

 

[StuBeck]

I know it's been beaten to death in the year or so since the M2 came out. But I question just how much this means in the real world. Obviously for the price of these machines you don't want any compromises and I get that. But realistically...I didn't buy into the SSD speed boogeyman.

I think its more the fact that it was a design decision made to save money when the company is worth so much. We're not talking about a startup either, the savings here is minimal, and it wasn't passed on to customers. It also went up to higher end models, not just the Air.

Its good they realized the issue, and have corrected it.

 

[erikkfi]

Wrong. The notch is still there.

 

[Return Zero]

On what principle? It was a better spec laptop on the whole.

Agreed but imagine if the wifi got slower, or the screen got dimmer, or whatever else, on a newer model versus the previous. Even on the little stuff, as a buyer you want to know everything is at least the same if not better than the older model. If the M1 hadn't set a higher bar, sure, this would have never been an issue. It's the same as the M3 Pro chip losing performance cores. I have one and it's amazing, but the optics of Apple "nerfing" it to upsell more Max chips is unavoidable (and not completely undeserved).

 

[ixxx69]

It wasn't a flaw, 97% of users buying a base config MBA would have no idea what this article is even referring to.

This was a completely made-up "problem". And before anyone says it's a "problem" for xyz users, maybe xyz users shouldn't be buying a base config MBA. "Problem" solved.

MacRumors is pivoting to being the Fox News of tech - sensationalistic misleading click-bait headlines and catering to the grievance crowd. Disappointing what MR has become.

 

[now i see it]

My sinister interpretation is that they intentionally installed a single chip SSD in the previous version- knowing full well that it was slower, so that the next version (today’s M3) could be “upgraded” to a faster dual chip drive — to encourage upgrades

 

[Gengar]

Considering the 15-inch M3 model just to play The Sims on…

 

[JPack]

It wasn't a flaw, 97% of users buying a base config MBA would have no idea what this article is even referring to.

This was a completely made-up "problem". And before anyone says it's a "problem" for xyz users, maybe xyz users shouldn't be buying a base config MBA. "Problem" solved.

MacRumors is pivoting to being the Fox News of tech - sensationalistic misleading click-bait headlines and catering to the grievance crowd. Disappointing what MR has become.

If it was a "made up" problem, then why did Apple reverse course to satisfy the 3% of customers?

Some people are basically saying, "it isn't a problem for me, so it can't be problem for anybody else."

 

[ort888]

I always had the feeling that the entire slow MacBook SSD scandal was people bickering over a problem that 99% of users would experience as: once every 6 months, copying a bunch of files would take 20 seconds instead of 10 seconds.

Sure, there are users for whom it would matter, but I don't think they would be buying a stock base model MacBook Air.

Apple has many egregiously consumer hostile practices... but I could never get worked up over this. I always saw it as a total non-issue.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

You mean the flaw MR members told us wasn't a flaw?

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

You mean the flaw MR members told us wasn't a flaw?

It was a feature. Two for the price of one.

 

[profcutter]

So are they RAID 0 disk striping across both SSDs? If so, I wonder if it's hardware or software RAID. Hardware RAID would be sweet.

Not sure if you’re joking, but it’s the definition of a hardware RAID.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

It was a feature. Two for the price of one.

"The slower speed isn't an issue", they asserted. "Issue now fixed", they hollered.

 

[profcutter]

Agreed but imagine if the wifi got slower, or the screen got dimmer, or whatever else, on a newer model versus the previous. Even on the little stuff, as a buyer you want to know everything is at least the same if not better than the older model. If the M1 hadn't set a higher bar, sure, this would have never been an issue. It's the same as the M3 Pro chip losing performance cores. I have one and it's amazing, but the optics of Apple "nerfing" it to upsell more Max chips is unavoidable (and not completely undeserved).

You seem to have explained the design philosophy of 2016-2019 MacBook pros: slower, hotter, thinner, worse keyboards.

 

[nikhsub1]

My sinister interpretation is that they intentionally installed a single chip SSD in the previous version- knowing full well that it was slower, so that the next version (today’s M3) could be “upgraded” to a faster dual chip drive — to encourage upgrades

And mine is that they thought they could get away with it and that no one would notice... oops.

 

[hans1972]

Apple finally stopped the fraud after years of ripping off customers. Let's keep up the intensity of complaints and lawsuits and public denunciation and ridicule whenever Apple does something shady.

To those who kept defending Apple with "You won't even know the difference," that is the very essence of a scam. But now you will also get the benefit of a faster machine and better value for your money.

Stay vigilant. Don't get Tim cooked.

If Apple changes its products and you don't notice it when you use the product, it doesn't really matter what they did.

All these tests shows sequential reads and writes of large files. Where few people who buy the low-end configurations of the MBA, does this often.

The two most important numbers are random read and random writes of small files or chunks of files. Here the difference is quite small and it would be hard to measure any difference when doing practical stuff like opening up a Word document.

 

[MNWildFan]

The real crime here is that they don't start the capacity at 512GB (and also memory at 16GB).

Flash memory and DRAM are both cheap enough now that it's about time they bump the base configuration up to 512GB/16GB.

I agree

I get it, most people will say that 8GB is plenty for the most basic of tasks, but even those doing just that will soon realize that having an extra 8GB will come in handy for all kind of multitasking like a lot of browser tabs and all

Also, even for someone who doesn't want to pony up for more iCloud storage, 512GB is a no brainer

 

[hans1972]

Okay. The M2 base might not have been 'flawed' and many users would never know the difference. Truth is there are many circumstances where the difference shows up. Caching, reading and writing audio/video files. A lot of us do lighter 'Pro' work on an Air.

Caching and audio files (as in Apple Music/Spotify) are so small that random reads and random writes is what you're looking for.

 

[Chazak]

I'm not sure if 'fix' is the right term here.

The decision to switch to a single module, just like removing HDMI, SD card ports, and MagSafe from notebooks, was unwarranted to begin with.

They've reversed course and we shouldn't be praising this as an upgrade, but a return to the standard.

How do you know it was unwarranted? How can any of us make that statement without inside knowledge of what went into the decision to use the two-chip set up on the base M2 configuration?

Even if it was solely about money, they had their reasons. We can not like what they do and some of the decisions they make, but there is little they do that doesn't have a solid basis from their side.

Buying a computer is like buying a car. You want the base model? Fine, but a buyer must accept the limitations that come with that configuration. Car manufacturers frequently change option packages by removing or adding items. I do not think this very different. They decide and we can buy or not buy. They can decide to respond to feedback or not.

I just don't understand the comment that it was unwarranted or they violated some standard.

 

[hans1972]

So it matters especially with the base model specifically because of the limited RAM, which Apple gets around by relying on swapfiles on the SSD. Since MacOS is using the SSD as a virtual extended RAM, SSD speed makes a noticeable difference even when loading 8 or more web tabs while watching a Youtube video. It becomes more noticeable as time goes on and websites become more and more memory intensive as they evolve. Taking the relatively inexpensive step of reconfiguring the SSD layout on the base M3 ensures increased longevity compared to the M2, which is important for a device that cannot be upgraded down the road like older Macs.

No, swap is more based on random reads and writes. macOS does swap in the background almost always before it's needed. So if you have 20 tabs open the 10 first tabs might have been swapped several minutes ago.

A slower SSD might delay swapping by 0.2 seconds, which wouldn't be noticeable.

 

[Chazak]

Okay. The M2 base might not have been 'flawed' and many users would never know the difference. Truth is there are many circumstances where the difference shows up. Caching, reading and writing audio/video files. A lot of us do lighter 'Pro' work on an Air.

If someone is doing the kind of work you describe and they made a decision to buy a machine with the single 256GB setup and it doesn;tmeet their needs, they made a mistake. That is not Apple's fault.

You are not saying it is Apple's fault, but the general theme of so many who have been discussing this ad nauseam since the M2 256GB configuration was released is that it is somehow Apple's fault and that is just not true.

 

[dgdosen]

I don't have proof, but I'd bet Apple is paying a premium to their supply chain to get "extra small" ram/dram modules compared to them upping the base of both (like 12/512)

 

[hans1972]

Here is a calculation I did back when the M2 MBA came out:

The M2 MacBook Air 256GB SSD had a sequential write speed of 2260 MB/s when writing 1GB blocks (The Verge)
The M2 MacBook Air 512GB SSD had a sequential write speed of 2760 MB/s when writing 1GB blocks (The Verge)

So writing 1GB of swap will take 0.44 seconds vs 0.36 seconds.

The M2 MacBook Air 256GB SSD had a sequential write speed of 1574 MB/s when writing 5GB blocks (The Verge)
The M2 MacBook Air 512GB SSD had a sequential write speed of 2188 MB/s when writing 5GB blocks (The Verge)

Writing a 5Gb file takes 3.2 seconds vs 2.9 seconds.


Now, tell me, do you really think this is a problem?