I post all over these forums about how the base M2 Air is more computer than most people need. Everyone trolls on the 'paltry' 8GB RAM and the 'slow as molasses' SSD, and yet, in actual use, the base spec M2 Air feels as fast as my M1 Pro in almost every normal computing scenario.
I blame YouTubers like MaxTech for seeding all this fear. They run torture tests with multiple 4K/8K streams, large number of high megapixel images and ridiculous synthetic benchmarks, to create headlines, and clickbait titles. (I actually like MaxTech except for this stuff).
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Of course, an 8GB M2 Air is going to struggle with 20GB photoshop files, 50 x 42megapixel Lightroom files. But seriously, who uses their MacBook Air for that and doesn't know that the 8GB isn't enough!
Real world use for most people is email, web, MS Office, 10-20 minute video project, Photos app, coding, GarageBand. The M2 Air handles these like butter - no issues, no slowdowns. Some people will say, 'ah, but.... memory pressure, swap usage, SSD wear'. To which I say show me a real world example of someone who wore out their SSD via normal computer usage. (I'm sure it can be done, but not many of us have to lose sleep over this when using our Macs)