Sold my 16 inch a month before the M1 came because I knew what was coming and I could spend that time away from a laptop. I got the full specced air (cause that’s what was release first) and that air was way snappier and equal or faster for my tasks (programming, photo editing) than the almost maxed out 16 inch. Best decision and you should switch asap.
Or you can get an M11 in an iPhone 8! (That's actually a motion coprocessor, but I think Apple has moved away from that nomenclature in newer phones to avoid confusion?)
The difference between the M2 and M1 was small for real-world applications, compared to the difference between Intel and M1, which was stunning.
Go to the MacRumors buyer's guide (https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/) and avoid buying a model when it's very late in its release cycle, but otherwise it's silly to keep waiting for a new model.
When the M3 comes out... the M1 will still be cheaper and effectively the same speed as the M3.
Performance has diminishing returns - at a certain point it's just "instant". The M1 got there for everyday tasks, and the M3 won't be noticeably faster for any of those.
I got an Intel mini at work just before the M1s came out and then an M1 MBAir for home use. I have noticed the latter runs circles around the former, even with Rosetta emulating Intel. My main reason for buying the M1 was that I liked the fanless (and therefore noiseless) design and saw it as a good fit for home recordings on my multichannel mixer, but have been quite impressed with its overall performance.
Ow, that hurts.. But on the other hand, when it came out, it was cutting edge tech if you were in the mac ecosystem! I remember seeing all those benchmarks and they fixed the fan throttling issues compared to the previous 15" macbook pros and had newly improved, studio-level mics/speakers 😄
I have a M1 air, and while it runs circles around the beefier intel macs, the screen and the speakers are shit. I wish I had waited for the M1 pros to drop.. I guess it's the circle of life, haha!
It's the opposite for me. Every time I use my work M1 mac, I miss my personal Intel one. I have so many issues with the M1. It's by far the worst mac I've used.
I got an intel right when the M1's came out because I didn't want to be a guinea pig for the M1. I guess I will move up to M2 when those prices start to fall because the fan is a huge drag. Otherwise I love it; it was my first Mac.