When Apple announced the 2019 refresh of its MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, attention was focused on the reduction in price and a boost to hardware. But while much was made of the addition of True Tone to the Retina Display and the lower starting figure, it seems that the price cut comes at the price of performance. Tests show that the 2019 MacBook Air's SSD is actually slower, significantly slower, than last year's model.

Tests carried out by French website Consomac found that the SSD in the new MacBook Air has a noticeably slower read speed than the 2018 Air. While last year's MacBook Air boasted a write speed of 920MB/s and a read speed of 2GB/s, figures for the 2019 refresh are 1GB/s write and 1.3 GB/s read. You'll notice that while there has been a slight increase in write speed, the read speed has been slashed by more than third. Consomac's tests were performed using the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test app. The prospect of picking up a new MacBook Air for $999 or $1,099 is certainly enticing...but is the saving worth the performance hit?