@numericcitizen I'm not looking for a Mac myself atm, but if I were, I think I would be in a pretty similar position as you. I have a base model MacBook Pro 14" (so M1 Pro chip and 16 GB RAM) - and I'm struggling a bit with the RAM amount. But it feels like my base "spending" is around 10 GB, so now I have about 6 GB to spare. That means going to 24 GB (with an M3 chip) would more than double my wiggle room (6 -> 14). :)

But would I then notice going from a Pro chip to a base chip?? Hard to know what counts the most, heh.

BTW - hit me up if you ever want to go for having two screens on your M1! It's pretty easy, but you need a very specific dongle. 😅