According to the results we see in Blackmagic’s Disk Speed Test app, the base model M2 MacBook Air has write speeds that are generally 15 to 30 percent slower than the 512GB model that Apple sent The Verge to review — and read speeds that can be 40 to 50 percent slower. This isn’t an unexpected result, as the base Air only includes one NAND chip, while the M1 and 512GB M2 models (and above) have two, which can enable nearly double the speeds. 512GB M2 MacBook Air 1GB Test. 256GB M2 MacBook Air 1GB Test. 512GB M2 MacBook Air 5GB Test. 256GB M2 MacBook Air 5GB Test. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the speeds we’re seeing from this entry-level MacBook Air are bad, they are (especially when it comes to reading data) the kind of speeds you can easily get on laptops that are a bit more , well, meh. For example, the base model is slightly faster than the 2019 Intel MacBook Pro in terms of write speeds, and read speeds are significantly worse. To pick a Windows machine out of a hat, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go 2 (starting at $600) also loses to the entry-level Air on writes, but destroys it on reads. (Read speeds are generally more important for general use, measuring how quickly your device can access files on its system.) We didn’t have a 256GB M1 Air to test, but the 512GB model we have is also faster than the base M2 model in both reading and writing, as you can see in the results below. 512GB M1 MacBook Air 5GB Test. 256GB Intel MacBook Pro 5GB Test. As Verge editor Dan Seifert explains in his review of the M2 Air, slower storage speeds can affect a number of tasks, including file transfers, and can also slow down overall performance since Macs use SSD space as swap memory when they are integrated. RAM has run out. That said, will these particular differences affect you? The people the Air is being marketed towards probably won’t see a life-changing contrast between the 256GB and 512GB models in terms of day-to-day performance. I ran two 4K YouTube videos in 25 open Chrome tabs for 30 minutes on both machines without having to dip into swap memory. Boot time was also pretty similar – I ran the two devices side by side several times. And I didn’t see much of a difference when it came to opening any of the apps I normally use, including Chrome, Safari, Messages, Photos, Activity Monitor, Slack, Music, etc. For the MacBook Pro’s target audience, however, a limitation like this could be a deal breaker. If you’re someone with a heavier workload (who might notice a difference), we generally recommend getting a MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro or Max chip instead of an Air. Activity tracking on the basic MacBook Air after 30 minutes of playing two 4K videos in another 20 tabs. That said, these results will definitely matter to some people. If you’re in that camp, you’ll need to pay $200 to upgrade from 256GB to 512GB, raising the price of the octa-core M2 MacBook Air from $1,199 to $1,399. If that seems like a lot, you can also get 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM on the still excellent M1 MacBook Air for $1,199 (the same price as the base M2 Air). My real-world comparisons found that the M2 machines are visibly better for graphics-heavy cases (like running games), but that their performance differences don’t have a huge impact on other tasks (photo and audio editing, web work, etc.). etc.) can be done by a simple user. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on these specific results and have yet to hear back. When we asked the company about the different storage configurations for the device review, spokeswoman Michelle Del Rio gave the following statement: Thanks to M2’s performance increases, the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro are incredibly fast, even compared to Mac laptops with the powerful M1 chip. These new systems use a new higher density NAND that provides 256GB of storage using a single chip. While the 256GB SSD’s benchmarks may show a difference compared to the previous generation, the performance of these M2-based systems for real-world activities is even faster.
