[lloda]

If 8 GB is ok for you, you don't need an M3 chip with tons of cores, either. You can just keep using your old laptop. Apple has kept the same base memory on these machines for a decade and now they are horribly unbalanced.

[smlacy]

Or maybe even just a $500 Chromebook?

[ajross]

Really-very-performant 8G quad core Tiger Lake Chromebooks are sub-$300 now, actually. Moved to one (finally, after much delay and insistence that no-I-really-need-a-Linux-Thinkpad) for my everyday client and, other than a few old keybindings I can't get out of my muscle memory...

I miss nothing. It's great. And contra Windows or Linux laptop integration, it really does have an all-day battery.