Not necessarily.If someone truly needs "sustained performance under heavy loads" shouldn't they be waiting for the updated Silicon iMac, Mac Pro, or 16" MBP (or buying the high end Intel versions if they can't wait?)
I do a lot of video web streaming and need computers both to encode/steam and also to act as media playback devices.
Neither of these are heavy lifts, but I cannot have any hiccups or interruptions.
So in my case, an M1 MBPro with a fan sounds incredible. I would never throw a $3,000 computer at that task. It’s overkill. But also the Air makes me a little nervous. I’m liking the difference between these two machines.