I am thinking that most of the people who buy the base model won't notice the slower SSD speed as it's still pretty fast. Having said that, I do think that using a slower SSD (in what's supposed to be the new faster MacBook) is pretty F'd up.
I would like to think that this was a chip/supply issue and this was a decision Apple had to make to in order to ramp up units in time for launch. Than again, with the increased starting price, if this was the case, perhaps the solve should've been using a 512MB SSD in the base model.
I have a 2TB on order... I wonder how that will compare (in terms of speed) to my 1TB M1 Air.
Also, looking at this video, I am confused about the heatsink... Didn't the M1 Air have a thick metal plate to pull heat away from the chip? It looks like this model just has a thin shield, or am I not fully understanding what I am seeing?