Define "average dev use".

My personal machine is a 16GB M1 Air. I never wish I had more horsepower. It's simply never an issue.

My work machine is a 16GB M1 Pro. Ditto. Really, I'd probably be fine on an M1 Air for that, too.

[EDIT] Yes I run local docker containers, though not with huge production datasets or for load testing or whatever—all that works fine. And, hell, they run faster than the shitty oversubscribed VMs our K8S cluster hands out anyway—I see way worse performance in prod.

[EDIT EDIT] Oh and I used to compile a fairly big C++ program on my Air pretty regularly, and use it to test/develop a big 3D application. Worked fine. Took a damn beefy server to compile that project much faster than my Air did.

> Define "average dev use".

Something between "editing an .html file" and "recompiling huge C++ projects every hour"

A few docker containers, IntelliJ, etc

(replying to myself)

Half the reason I'm getting is a Mac is because they're so nice to look at, so I think I really want the better screen. And the extra RAM is always nice. And I know I'll appreciate the decent speakers.

Plus it'll arrive way quicker. I think I'm happy with the MBP...

FWIW I think you made a good choice with the MBP

(replying to myself again)

The MBP arrived. What a machine!

I'm biased that my current laptop is a 2015 MBP (never owned an Air). But I'm still tempted to return it and get a 15" M3 MBA and save £600.

I think I underestimate battery life and over-emphasised performance. I've been running some npm & maven tasks every 1 minute, run a docker container, playing music on the speakers, set battery to power saver, set brightness to 50%. And after 4.5 hours I'm down to 72%, so I think I'm happy with that.

Dev use is a huge spectrum. You know your use cases better than us. For example dev use in my line of work just means you can run ssh and an editor.

You will never regret more memory but if you want value, put that 600 into nvidia or apple stock.

Yeah by the time you realize you are ram bound that nvda stock might be worth a new computer outright.