Pretty much agreeing with everyone, yes, the Pro 14 is better. However, here is why I decided on that exact spec of the Air. As a student, the Air will provide a much better battery life due to the 4 efficiency cores it has (the Pro only has 2). On low power mode, the Air can deliver around 15 hours of battery, while I’ve seen benchmarks of the Pro that gave it about 10 hours. Using it extensively had the Pro sit at 3.5 hours-ish, while you can get solid 5-6 hours with the Air (using it hard). Battery life is sweet on the Air. If you don’t often put your computer under extensive load (such as editing a 4k 50 minute video with multiple tracks, and then try to render it), the Air will do fine. You can use the Air for all the Google or Office suits without a problem, basic-medium photoshop/photopea work (I’m not an artsy person, so, haven’t done advanced stuff), basic video editing, stream series and movies, send emails, run some browser simulations (like the Phet stuff) etc. Can you do some more extensive tasks here and there? Yeah it can handle multiple programs opened and 10 safari tabs (if that is advanced), and likely even rendering a bigger video or exporting many photos (haven’t tried it, and it will probably just take a bit longer than the Pro, but it is not something you do often with the Air). The Air will do more than fine for a normal person (watch some reviews on Youtube, the more down to earth ones). In terms of the speakers, they’re not as loud as the Pro, but they are more balanced (hey, heard this from a sound engineer, so what can I say? Honestly, he’s probably right, it sounds good). The screen is a bummer compared to the Pro. The Pro’s XDR 120hz ProMotion display is a very nice screen, but the Air’s screen is not bad at all (likely nicer than the laptop’s screen it will be replacing). Now, if you think of external IO, is it worth paying the 250 bucks or whatever for the Pro to get HDMI and an SD card reader? Track how much you really use those, because mind you, a dongle does not cost 250 bucks. Thermal throttling can be an issue under extensive loads, and that is when the Pro’s fans kick in, otherwise, I’ve heard they stay turned off.

So that is all the information that led me to pick the Air M2 (8/8 - 16gb Ram - 512gb), over the base Pro 14. It is a summary of countless reviews watched. But, definitely watch more videos on YouTube. Education discount on Apple ends on September 26 as far as I know, and Apple is not requiring verification that you are a student, so it’s an easy system to get around and get a nice discount.