Is this the end of my MBP? 😩

[Peter Franks]

Well, the Pro does have higher spec over the Air -- otherwise there wouldn't be any point. The Air is fanless, so if you are pushing the CPU hard, it will throttle the CPU; whereas the Pro will turn the fans on. (Though I've never pushed my M1 Pro MBP hard enough to hear the fans..!)
Yes, the speakers are better on the Pro, there are more ports; though the Air is lighter, if that's a consideration. You might want to check if the screens are the same quality. The Air is 13", rather than 14", don't forget.

As ever, when your budget constrains your choices, you'll have to make some compromises. By sacrificing the MBP in favour of the Air, you can spend more on higher spec RAM and storage. It's a thought.

I'd definitely go to an Apple Store and have a look at the Air and MBP, and see what you think. If you smile sweetly, they may even test the speakers for you.

What I'd give to have a machine that's fans don't come on for light web browsing... or YouTube 1080s. Not bothered about portability/weight anymore. I wonder how much I'd notice the difference going 13 to 14" screen. Living in London has had it's moments for me when carrying anything vaguely visibly Apple looking these days, cased or otherwise, so it won't be travelling much at all. I will go into Apple and check them out, thank you again. I don't know about the smiling sweetly bit though. For what they charge to go from 512 to 1TB they should be singing and dancing for me?

Speakers are good on the Air but better on the Pro especially the bigger one. Physics is at play here the more space and the better grill the better the sound. Notably the screen is much better on the new pros vs the air. Get the nano texture display if you do any work outside or near bright windows. The difference is night and day.

When you say it like that... it makes a lot of sense. The nano can only be purchased direct from Apple store I'm guessing. I don't really use outside, we don't have the weather for that sort of thing, but intrigued to see it now. Thank you

benwiggy advised:
"Alternatively, for £2000, I'd go with the base M4, but 24Gb RAM and 1 Tb storage."

Good advice for the future.

Peter Franks:
As I'll guess you've discovered by now, you CAN'T expand installed RAM or SSD size in the new m-series MacBooks.

But... the "pro" models (both m4 and m4pro) offer a nice complement of ports
3 thunderbolt/USBc
SD card slot
HDMI port
Headphone port

KEEP IN MIND that if you buy "a base model" with the minimum RAM and SSD size today, it's likely going to become very "constrained" as the requirements of the OS and software grow in the years to come.

So... grit your teeth and get something with "a little more" TODAY, to give it growing room for the years to come.

If it was me, I'd spring for 32 or 36gb of RAM. But 24 will do, certainly better than 16 or 18.

Does Apple have an online refurbished store in the UK?
If they do, you can save money by buying from them.
I've bought my last two Minis that way -- very satisfied.

Interesting what you say about the RAM Fish, I thought you'd say there was nothing much in it with the 16/24/32. Good advice, and yeh, the little more is needed. I'm amazed they're still putting in headphone ports. Thunderbolt USBc, I've never got the difference on them. So any old USB sticks needs adaptors, why do they do this. Even seeing those sticks on Amazon, they're mainly the old USB, hardly any 'C' on there. They do have the online refurbished here, but what amazed me was the savings were less than the discount you get on Amazon for a new one. What I saw was mainly £150/200/250 odd less than new, and that's pretty much a discount on a new, anywhere else but in an Apple store. The £1999 MBP on Apple is 1700 on Amazon. I don't know what the deal is with Amazon as regard to pros and cons, other than the fact you can't specify, memory, storage, nano texture etc.