I just bought a 15" MBA M2 16/1 - and before I did so, I carefully compared it to the MBPs, both the previous generation and the new M3. While like anyone, I prefer to pay less rather than more, I'm not super price sensitive. In fact, given that I bought my 15" directly from Apple, and it's a 16GB RAM upgrade and 1TB storage upgrade, the price was high enough that I could've just bought the new base 14" MBP M3. Yet, I still bought the MBA.
It's possible (and indeed probable) that I'm not a typical Apple customer, so I don't know how relevant my reasons for purchase are in the big picture of the marketing realm, but FWIW, my reasons for the MBA over the MBP are very much centered around screen size and more importantly weight. Here, I much prefer the lighter and less chunky MBA - I went to the Apple store and compared them pretty closely. Incidentally, I used to own the M1 MBP 13" - I bought it back when the wait for the Air was just too long and the MBP was immediately available, and I really needed a computer and so got the MBP (it was a terrible experience, the MBP was faulty and ultimately I traded it in). Comparing both (15" MBA M2 and MBP M3) in the store was a very, very clear choice for me - I hated the "chunkiness" of the MBP, the density of weight compared to the larger but lighter feeling MBA. So just based on that, I would've always chosen the MBA. But if there were compelling reasons for the MBP, I'd consider it - however the advantages of the MBP, such as they are, are not compelling to me; the MBP has a better quality screen - to my eye, it's barely perceptible in the short examination in the store, but the size certainly is smaller than the 15" MBA, so again, this is not a reason *for me* to go for the MBP (it's possible that if my use case was centered around heavy photo/video editing I'd feel differently about the screen, but I mostly do word processing and web surfing/research). The other advantages of the MBP is a newer generation chipset, but I don't do any heavy visual or 3-D modeling tasks, so again, *for me* the M3 in the MBP is not compelling over the M2 in the MBA. Same with other things like quality of mic or speakers etc. There just isn't enough of a capability difference given my use case between the MBA M2 and MBP M3, so I went for the 15" MBA based purely on aesthetics and "feel". I freely acknowledge that even when it comes to size and weight the differences between the MBA and MBP are very small, but precisely because the MBA has a larger screen, the differences are exaggerated when it comes to the perceived weight or "chunkiness" purely subjectively.
Bottom line, some of us *much* prefer the 15" MBA M2, and indeed like it very much - clearly though there aren't enough of us to impact sales
. So I agree, the 15" MBA is fantastic and I wouldn't trade it for any other Apple *current* offering - though the future may have some surprises for us... for example, I wouldn't mind if the MBA was lighter and had an even longer battery life, maybe OLED screen etc., if that happens, I may have to trade in my current MBA. But so far, I'm very, very pleased with the 15" MBA (it's only been a day so far though, ha, ha!).
