Also just two ports on a PRO model. C‘mon there is plenty of room on both sides. Maybe lets it look elegant but then the cable mess will be on the desk, thanks.
Those 8 extra PCIe lanes eat a lot of power. It's worth noting that Intel's processor they used in the 2019 MBP 13 had 16 PCIe lanes (I think the chipset added more too), but this chip probably has 10-12 at the absolute most.
The "we integrated thunderbolt" bit is also implying an untruth that nobody else does that. Intel did that last year with Ice Lake. AMD will do that next year when they upgrade their IO die.
It was just mentioned in passing, and they did not imply that the others did not. It’s just the answer to an obvious question about these devices: “Does it support Thunderbolt?” “Yes, it’s integrated into the M1”.
No, but that's not relevant. Their x86 to ME graphic shows all the things merging together.
The point is that it's mostly Apple's fault to begin with. They choose to use outdated processors without integrated thunderbolt. They chose to add their massive A10 die instead of a normal, optimized SSD controller (not to mention this screws over data recovery and SSD replacement). They are exaggerating at best about RAM as the chips merely sit beside the core. The only thing they should really claim is the IO die and even that's nothing too special.
