MacBook Air Teardown Reveals M2 Chip and Single Storage Chip for 256GB Model

[Lexdexia]

In real world use cases, the entry level M2 Air is slower than the entry level M1 Air. Because nobody is going to buy a $1200 laptop to only open up a few tabs of web pages or documents.

It’s a shame the faster M2 SoC is held back by slower storage simply because Apple cheap out and don’t want to take a loss to its margins.

This goes back to the whole Steve Jobs’ quote on not building a cabinet or dresser with higher quality wood and then using cheap plywood for the back panel that the user never sees. Clearly Apple decided to use plywood here in an effort to save costs and drive up the average selling price.

 

[CrazyForCashews]

Love the clean design, looks great inside and out!

 

[JPack]

What’s notable is Apple stuck on thermal insulation (thick black adhesive foil) to the M2 heat spreader.

This reduces the amount of heat that will transfer convectively to the notebook bottom cover. It suggests they didn’t want the exterior chassis to get too hot.

 

[issacj]

I have a suspicion that newly produced base MBA M1s will also have a single storage chip. At least here in the UK these are suspiciously out of stock at many retailers and, when I last checked, had a later delivery date than the M2 Air on the UK Apple website.

If they've used single chips due to supply constraints, then I'd assume those same constraints would similarly affect newly produced M1 devices?

 

[ghanwani]

The fact is MOST people get base model Macbooks and the new "supercharged" base model should NOT have slower speeds in any aspect than the 2 year old model, especially considering they bumped up the price by $200.

This is business as usual. You have to go back to the 2000's where a new model was better than an old one in every way, whether we are talking cars, appliances, or computers.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

It's so funny seeing the fanboys defend Apple like this trillion dollar CORPORATION is their family member. ⚰️

The fact is MOST people get base model Macbooks and the new "supercharged" base model should NOT have slower speeds in any aspect than the 2 year old model, especially considering they bumped up the price by $200.

Stop sucking up to a corporation. They care about their shareholders and not you.

It isn't defending Apple or sucking up to them to be realistic and say that most people buying a base model Air will not run into issues with the SSD.

 

[DMG35]

I finally had to unsubscribe to these guys. I used to find their videos informative, now its just constant click bait with outlandish claims. I’m sure this video is fine, but the constant nitpicking these guys do with “This chip actually performed better at .05 seconds faster!” Gets monotonous and tedious.

 

[MGGN]

It probably doesn't make a big deal for why I am purchasing, but we need another computer at work and I was going to purchase an iMac to fill the hole. I plan to go with the $1,499 iMac w/ base specs, as it will be mostly used for reception, web browsing, e-mail, parts ordering, etc... My question is, I wonder if the base model M1 iMac has been quietly switched to the slower SSD if its a cost cutting measure.

 

[turbineseaplane]

People like my retired mom or my wife the psychologist, my brother the attorney... normal people, not geeks... they're never going to realize it's slower if you don't option 512GB.

One big caveat there..

If they buy a base model with only 8GB ram, it's absolutely easy for them to load it up and the swap comes into play...and that 50% slower than M1 SSD speed will be a bottleneck.

 

[Account25476]

Having a M1 Air, the SSD speed is extremely important. I noticed this immediately when, after opening up a few apps, the 8GB started limiting at around 7GB and the swap usage became increasingly larger but the performance did not slow down! This meant the SSD speed was fast enough to substitute for RAM without appreciable cost. If the SSD has half the speed then going from base M1 to base M2 will not be an upgrade but a downgrade in performance. Potential purchasers should know this!

 

[JPack]

I have a suspicion that newly produced base MBA M1s will also have a single storage chip. At least here in the UK these are suspiciously out of stock at many retailers and when I last checked had a later delivery date than the M2 Air on the UK Apple website.

And if they've used single chips due to supply constraints, then I'd assume those same constraints would similarly affect newly produced M1 devices?

No, because there would be legal repercussions of doing that.

Apple would need to update their M1/MBA press release which specifically states "up to 2X" faster storage performance. Apple can't simply delete a CPU core or reduce SSD performance without taking other action.

Besides, the M1 MBA is widely available across the world.

 

[jlc1978]

The SSD isn't shocking anyone anymore, and nor is it really that much of a big deal. Jog on.

Exactly. It'll take what - an extra second to write another GB or so of data?

MacRumors just isn't very representative of the typical client base for this Mac. People like my retired mom or my wife the psychologist, my brother the attorney... normal people, not geeks... they're never going to realize it's slower if you don't option 512GB. It'll be fast enough for their very basic uses of a computer.

Exactly. They simply want a fast, reliable machine that does what they want. They'll spend more time thinking about what they type than any lag due to the slower write speed. I'd bet most don't know what an M2 is; let alone care about the guts of their machine or meaningless specs for their use case. While geeks measurabate they get stuff done.

Those of us who know... probably will spec 512GB or continue on MacBook Pros.

As you point out, those that really need more performance aren't the target market for that machine; many are probably not in the target market for an Air if absolute best write speeds are an important impact on their workflow.

 

[JPack]

MacRumors just isn't very representative of the typical client base for this Mac. People like my retired mom or my wife the psychologist, my brother the attorney... normal people, not geeks... they're never going to realize it's slower if you don't option 512GB. It'll be fast enough for their very basic uses of a computer. Those of us who know... probably will spec 512GB or continue on MacBook Pros.

Those non-geeks are the same people that would buy 8/256 and then turn to swap because they like to leave tabs and programs open. Unlike Windows, macOS doesn't make it easy to quit an app.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Hold up Joe you're telling me this thing has an M2 in it??

Just keeping Apple honest. They tried to slip the storage downgrade past us, after all.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Those non-geeks are the same people that would buy 8/256 and then turn to swap because they like to leave tabs and programs open. Unlike Windows, macOS doesn't make it easy to quit an app.

Uh what? Command+Q. Or, right click dock icon -> quit. If that doesn’t work, Apple menu -> Force quit… -> choose application and hit force quit.

How is that any more difficult than Windows?

 

[jazz1]

Sheeeesh! It’s so compact! Impressed by the finest engineering. The internals looks well aligned and beautiful. Talk about attention to detail. Only Apple can do it. 🙌🏻

I too was impressed with the design and layout of the internals! Frankly, I'd pop for the extra RAM and faster/larger SSD, and keep it longer to justify the upgrade price. I may save up a little a grab one in the fall, maybe even an Apple refurb. to take the upgraded RAM/SSD price sting out of it

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Uh what? Command+Q. Or, right click dock icon -> quit. If that doesn’t work, Apple menu -> Force quit… -> choose application and hit force quit.

How is that any more difficult than Windows?

Yeah if anything I have to open up task manager on windows to quit out of stuff frequently. I actually find macOS better for this.

 

[JPack]

Uh what? Command+Q. Or, right click dock icon -> quit. If that doesn’t work, Apple menu -> Force quit… -> choose application and hit force quit.

How is that any more difficult than Windows?

Most non-geeks aren't going to regularly right-click or Force Quit an app. They hit the red button. The similar red button in Windows actually quits the app in one step.

 

[Macalway]

Funny. This forum will destroy any joy someone might have with a new purchase they might be able to afford if they scrounge.

It's like....Evil

 

[JPack]

Yeah if anything I have to open up task manager on windows to quit out of stuff frequently. I actually find macOS better for this.

You don't need to do that when the red X in the upper right corner already does that.

 

[biffuz]

I think the fact it's soldered is much worse than its speed...

 

[ProfessionalFan]

I think the fact it's soldered is much worse than its speed...

I agree with this yes, it is unfortunate that you can't upgrade storage or RAM without paying a hefty premium at the time of purchase.

It is one of the things I dislike about Apple, though the positives still outweigh Windows based machines for me at least.

 

[FNH15]

In real world use cases, the entry level M2 Air is slower than the entry level M1 Air. Because nobody is going to buy a $1200 laptop to only open up a few tabs of web pages or documents.

It’s a shame the faster M2 SoC is held back by slower storage simply because Apple cheap out and don’t want to take a loss to its margins.

This goes back to the whole Steve Jobs’ quote on not building a cabinet or dresser with higher quality wood and then using cheap plywood for the back panel that the user never sees. Clearly Apple decided to use plywood here in an effort to save costs and drive up the average selling price.

While I don’t disagree with the issue of having a performance decrease YOY (though I suspect its due to chip shortages & holding the 128GB NAND chips for other Macs / devices) Apple under SJ had a number of areas where there were issues in device quality - I’m thinking of the Ti PowerBook’s and original MBA’s hinges, not too mention the numerous issues with dGPUs due to thermal issues. Don’t forget the original MacBooks with their cracking palm rests - cost cutting, surely.

The whole soldering issue is beating a dead horse though. No way to have an M1/M2 chip (where the controller is on-chip) without the discrete memory chips being soldered (or worthless if socketed). This topic was addressed with the Mac Studio a few months ago.

 

[BootsWalking]

Here we go again.
Low end SSD sucks, there’s no way around it.
But this is like thread 6000 on it, it’s old news at this point.
Why did Apple do it? I still say that it’s because of supply constraints.

The reason is likely more benign - all high-density memory chips like NAND and SDRAM have a sweet-spot for production density, ie the most economical size to produce the chips based on current fab tech and end-user density demand. The current density for NAND is probably equal to the minimum SSD size Apple offers, thus the single-chip.

 

[Shirasaki]

What’s notable is Apple stuck on thermal insulation (thick black adhesive foil) to the M2 heat spreader.

This reduces the amount of heat that will transfer convectively to the notebook bottom cover. It suggests they didn’t want the exterior chassis to get too hot.

What does that mean? Apple prefer trapping heat inside the chassis rather than dissipating them as much and quickly as possible? What’s that logic?