Had an 11" MBA for 11 years now and finally upgraded to the M2 today. It's on it's way - went for the 8core/8core, 16gb, 512 SSD. My last Air was an 8gb ram 128gb, an i7. Actually I'm typing this on it right now. It's still good for writing, bluetooth headphones, browsing, but not much else. Battery life is a couple hours at best and it does the whole turn off if it gets too hot thing now. Brightness increase button no longer works (hasn't for years - i use Brightness Slider in the menubar), and the hinge has lost a bit of resistance. And it gets really, really warm. But damn, for an 11 year old computer it still flies, still instant on. I don't think i'll be able to get rid of it, maybe there's still a use for it. Maybe a giveaway to the right person at the right time.
The M2 I'm pretty excited about. Mainly because I'll be able to do things on it I couldn't do on the 11". For me, i live a dual laptop lifestyle - the Air is for chilling and travelling, and an MBP 2017 is my main workhorse when I need more power. But the M2 will be able to do a little more now - to me the Air is also a sketchpad machine, somewhere where I can flesh out ideas, but then finish up on my main machine.
I think that's one thing most reviews i checked out never take into account, it was always from the perspective of the Air being your only machine - and if you needed more performance, you should instead get the 14" Pro. I almost went there, but to me that would replace both my 11", and my 2017 MBP. And the truth is, I don't really like this gen of Macbook Pro's, too chunky and heavy for my liking. I prefer the Touchbar thinness. And we lived with dongles for so long, hell, I'm used to it now. I don't gain anything by getting a HDMI port back, and now we lose a Thunderbolt port in the process.
So I've actually decided I'm waiting for that rumoured 15" to replace my MBP, I think it will be the launch M3 product, and with a bit of luck might even come with a third Thunderbolt port, and maybe even an SD slot. And that enabled me to go for the M2 Air, and forget about the 14" Pro. I'm actually really curious to see how the Air stacks up against my MBP - I think the 15" will still trump the M2 in certain graphics tasks, but then who knows, maybe not.
So I'd just say to folks who are in the same boat, don't caught up in the whole "you need the 14" thing" if you have a multi-mac lifestyle. It took me a while to land on it but I'm happy to have landed on the Air, and it frees up my main machine to become something else in the future. I did also almost go the base model, but, if I'm going to use this machine for another 10 years, 16gb and 512 seemed like a wiser move.
