MacBook Neo SSD Speeds Might Play A Big Part In Making Or Breaking Your Purchase

Apple only stated that the MacBook Neo ships with either a 256GB or 512GB SSD, because if the company had mentioned how fast its NAND flash storage is, potential customers might be discouraged from picking it up. According to the latest comparison, the most affordable portable Mac in the company’s lineup doesn’t even cross the PCIe NVMe Gen 3 bandwidth.

In the latest Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, Apple’s M5 MacBook Air, the second most affordable portable Mac, has up to 316 percent faster SSD speeds than the MacBook Neo

If there was one shocking compromise that we didn’t know about until now, it was the MacBook Neo’s sluggish SSD, as YouTuber Dave2D shows that when running Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, the most affordable portable Mac only manages 1,591.2MB/s read and 1,574.2MB/s write bandwidth, making the M5 MacBook Air SSD speeds up to 316.6 percent faster. What’s even disappointing is that in the list provided below, the 13-inch MacBook Air, which has the slowest speeds from the pack, is faster than the MacBook Neo.

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (read)

• 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro - 6752.1MB/s (M5 MacBook Pro is 324.3 percent faster)
• 13-inch M5 MacBook Air - 6473.4MB/s (M5 MacBook Air is 306.8 percent faster)
• 15-inch M4 MacBook Air - 2904 MB/s (M4 MacBook Air is 82.5 percent faster)
• 13-inch M4 MacBook Air - 2833.3 MB/s (M4 MacBook Air is 78.1 percent faster)
• 13-inch MacBook Neo - 1,591.2MB/s

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (write)

• 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro - 6194.2 MB/s (M5 MacBook Pro is 293.4 percent faster)
• 13-inch M5 MacBook Air - 6558.6MB/s (M5 MacBook Air is 316.6 percent faster)
• 15-inch M4 MacBook Air - 3023.9MB/s (M4 MacBook Air is 92.09 percent faster)
• 13-inch M4 MacBook Air - 1987.7MB/s (M4 MacBook Air is 26.2 percent faster)
• 13-inch MacBook Neo - 1,574.2MB/s

Fortunately, the speeds are high enough that the MacBook Neo will operate smoothly, as we can imagine that Apple would be issuing updates to macOS to make it less resource-hungry on the affordable machine. However, the biggest drawback is the 8GB RAM count, which cannot be upgraded, and if users try anything slightly demanding, the memory is expected to be used up completely, forcing the SSD to begin swapping data temporarily.

When that happens, we cannot comment on how the MacBook Neo will perform, but we can guess that it won’t be a pretty sight. Before you pre-order this Mac from Amazon for $599, we advise checking out our detailed buying guide that compares the MacBook Neo and the M5 MacBook Air and provides recommendations on which machine to choose, depending on your daily workload.

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