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Originally Posted by Mikepd

Greg, I upgraded my MacBook Air in January shortly before the announcements of the new M3 models, but knew through the rumors and tech sites that a new model with the M3 chip was coming. I bought an M2 MacBook Air with 8GB memory and paid to upgrade the HD to the 512GB SSD, over upgrading the memory.

My view is anything that I might do that needs extensive memory (16GB) would be on a desktop where heat dissipation and power regulation is much better than any laptop. Also all the features of Sequoia will work with any series the Apple Silicon chips (M1, M2, or M3), and since Apple is still supporting MacBook Air models with Intel chips, I foresee the M2 being supported for years to come.

So for me, the deep savings of last years model with little to no noticeable differences than this years models, and the dependability of adding Apple Care for three years, which still put me ahead of the pricing on the new models, made it an easy decision.

For what it sounds like you'll be doing, the base model with the M3, or even the M2 chipset, sounds like it would be fine, and if you wanted to upgrade something at time of purchase, I'd go with the larger hard drive over upgrading the memory. The only time I'd suggest to upgrade the memory with what you're doing, is if you went with a MacBook Pro for its display features.

Thanks Mike, that is about what I was thinking. And since I have my MacBook set to store all my docs and photos in iCloud I am gonna get the base model M3. If it gets too overwhelmed in a couple years I will just sell it for a very good price and upgrade again. Thanks for the input.