I'm tempted to do a point-by-point rebuttal but that would waste time for both of us. Let's start with
Yes. Yes I am. That's *exactly* the point of my post. These machines are expensive, even the base models. For the target audience, i.e. college students and general purpose computing, consumers should not need to know about the SSD speed shortfalls and how much RAM to buy.
Consumers NEED to know about SSD speeds and RAM shortfalls if they actually want to get their money's worth. If they don't, then every point you make about being cost-conscious goes right out the window.
It should just work like all the other base model Airs did previously.
And yet, Apple shortchanged us on there being only one NAND chip rather than two. You can't argue with how things turned out.
It is preposterous to recommend *another* $200 on a machine who price has gone up *by* $200 effectively. Most people have budgets they have to stick to.
Indeed. So, for those who can't afford the extra $200, it is merely sensible to just buy the M1 Air which, unlike (and compared to) the base model M2, is a REALLY good bang for buck. Because they're on a budget. Otherwise, recognize that the true cost of entry for a quality machine that will last longer is $1400, not $1200. Or spend EXACTLY $1200 and get a machine with an inferior SSD. These are the MacBook Air options for us in August 2022. You can't debate them. They simply just are.
Ah, I see. So you are not the target audience for this mainstream machine.
What even is the target audience for a MacBook Air now that Intel isn't inside anymore? If you're telling me that the same people buying a MacBook Air in August 2022 should be the same folks that would've bought the 2020 Intel model exactly two years ago, I'd rub my fleet of M1 Airs in your face and show you that the bar is raised and that this is no longer the metric the world has to measure the MacBook Air to.
Listen, the point about the cloud storage being cheap holds true for students, who are allocated University licences for Office 365 with up to 5TB OneDrive storage for free. A large sector of the target audience for this machine is high school and college students. They are not going to fill up 256GB as easily as you would.
We're not talking about how easily I would or wouldn't fill up a 256GB SSD. We're talking about how one is slower than that of the predecessor model (and the lower-end M1 model that is still sold today). If none of your files live locally, that's awesome! 256GB will probably be enough for you then! Still a bad idea considering that needs change over time, but in your inverted world where spending less today (and requiring the sooner spend of more tomorrow) is a better financial move (rather than simply waiting until the user had $200 more), that would still fly! However, that doesn't do crap to address the speed of the SSD which HOLDS AND BOOTS THE OPERATING SYSTEM! Or were we thinking that the cloud could take care of that too?
Incidentally, you are generalizing that all high school and college students use computers the same way. Take a high school gamer that plays StarCraft Remastered, Hearthstone, Diablo III, StarCraft II, and possibly WoW Classic who also works on visual art. A 256GB SSD (whether of acceptable read/write speeds or otherwise) will fill that drive. And mind you, that's (a) not that many games and (b) not an uncommon use case.
And again, you're using "target audience" as though the MacBook Air didn't change when the underlying silicon did which is...well...flawed.
So, because Apple gets to routinely exploit people's need to upgrade their machines because they are not user serviceable, we should let them get away with it? No. Spending the extra $200 is letting them get away with it. I reject that with every single fibre of my being.
Alright: I definitely empathize with any "don't give Apple any more money than you have to" sentiments, especially when you have people torn between the M2 Air and the 14" MacBook Pros like they're comparable machines. But pick and choose your battles, man!
We're talking about a drive you can't upgrade later. And, I don't know if you've ever been in this position, but when Apple caps you on storage, that usually HASTENS the time in which that user goes shopping for another Mac. Hastening the time between Mac purchases goes 180-degrees from your "don't let them get away with it" diatribe and achieves the very end goal you sought to avoid to begin with. Spend the extra money to get the extra years of time with the devices; then you don't have to buy them anywhere near as frequently.
It's one reason why I don't have an Apple machine in my repertoire for the first time in years right now, after years and years of paying the Apple Tax.
Honestly, if I didn't have years of my life in that ecosystem and, separately (but still relevantly), my entire IT career resting on it, I'd give up my Macs tomorrow. I have a way less bumpy road in Windows anyway.
Enough is enough. I am waiting for a more sensibly balanced price/performance machine with 16GB RAM/512GB SSD that doesn't cost $2000 or close to it. I'm happy to wait, but it just goes to show the state of Apple profit margins these days.
An M1 Air with that spec is reasonable. Even moreso if you shop Apple Certified Refurbished.
Same goes for both the M1 13" Pros (when Apple Certified Refurbished). I have the latter configuration and it's great. Though, that goes against the grain of not having a Mac in your arsenal. That said, there are some pretty great business PCs out there with those specs that aren't crazy expensive.
Tbh external storage has some limitations for some types of use, but also has some advantages for others. For example, you can easily transfer huge amount of files/libraries between computers, or even not need to transfer at all and just use/edit directly from there, same with applications that can run from an external drive. That is super cool for somebody that may need to run things from different computers.
The limitations come only if what you store in the external drive is what you use all the time, because carrying the ssd all the time or having it connected all the time is suboptimal. But if it a more occesional thing, eg games that you play once in a while in the evening, or some videos that you edit or whatever some point, while you use the computer most of the time for browsing, work and stuff for which low storage is not an issue, using an external drive is great.
Nothing you say here is wrong. But the point isn't so much that more storage should be an automatic (though, I'd again argue that going one size capacity larger than you think you will need GIVEN THAT THE STORAGE ON THESE THINGS IS NOT EVEN REMOTELY UPGRADEABLE, is a wise call, given the high cost to buy another one). It's that the base model SSD sucks compared to (a) the 512GB or larger options and (b) the SSD of the exact same capacity still used by the predecessor product that is also still sold today.
