Just went to Costco and saw some nice prices on lower-end Apple laptops.

We need a general use around-the-house laptop for browsing, home office use, probably some movie streaming.

Air or Pro? I'll probably tick the "more RAM" button, if it's offered and call it a day. Is the air really that good?

For typical home use, you are not likely to see a difference in performance. Where the Pro wins out over the Air is in being able to attach peripherals and longer battery, the Air is lighter and cheaper. I am comparing the low-end models of both, the Pro has models with higher specs, although you can get the Air with an M2 CPU, not yet available for the Pro.

Unless you absolutely need the capability of moving the system around at a moments notice, I'd be looking at the Mac Mini to maximize bang for the buck in a fixed location home usage scenario.

Yeah I have a pretty good desktop machine anchored to a large monitor in the basement. There have been many times recently where I wished I could buy something or research something hanging out upstairs.

I think even the older gen air might work fine. I just want a "real laptop", not a tablet or Chromebook (heh google autocorrects it to be capitalized).

We have an iMac and an MacBook Air. The iMac sits idle, the Air is used for everything - and all over the house. We looked at the Pro, and given the projected use (emails, financial, banking, surfing...) it didn't make sense to pay for more power. Our photos are downloaded on an external hard drive to free up space on the Air.

We have 2 Macbook Airs, one a few years old and a brand new one. They do everything you would need and more. As far as streaming movies we end up using an iphone and mirror it on the TV if we are unable to watch it directly through the TV or cable provider.

Air all the way for that. No question for me. I just bought a Pro. The number one most important reason why I upped to that was for the mag-safe charger and the HDMI. Not all ALL for any performance delta.

Either the M1 or M2 Macbook Air has more horsepower than 90% of PC laptops sold in the US. You have to get into large gaming laptops to get equal on performance. Unless you’re debugging long strings of code or rendering hours of 4K video, the Air will be fine. The Pro upgrade is only worth it if it has more memory/storage or just want a better screen.

I bought an M1 MacAir for my wife. Looked very hard at the MB Pro for me but ended up with another Air.
For your uses there is no reason to get extra RAM; depending on storage needs a larger SSD is always good—-say 512 gB.

MacBook Air...replying from my MacBook Air!

The M1 and M2 processors make better use of on board memory and really do not need as much remote memory. I just bought a MB Pro but only because of the massive memory to use the music composing programs that my grandson uses. He can literally program music for an entire symphony orchestra on the machine. I plan on transferring this machine to him when he starts college (music major) next year.

I've been using a M2 Air the last two months. It replaced a MBP that gave faithful and reliable service for nearly 10-years. While I like the idea of being able to connect more items with the MBP to include a HDMI, the reality is streaming has changed since I got the MBP, and I haven't needed to connect my laptop in over 5-years. Battery life difference favors the MBP but, not by large amount.

 
I priced a new 13" M2 Air when they first came out. Once I added what I considered essential (512GB internal SSD, which also comes with an upgraded processor, and 16GB RAM), it was darn close to the 2021 M1 Pro 14" Macbook Pro. In fact, the 2021 M1 Pro 512GB model is currently $1599 at Amazon (lowest price yet), a much better machine, IMO. Better display, more powerful CPU/GPU, 16GB RAM standard, and one additional TB4 port. Whereas the M2 Air as I specced it is $1699.

Very good point Henry. If you're storing a lot, that's a worthy move. I went 2TB because I story a metric shit ton of images and videos. I'm no YouTuber either. Just a big family, and a lot of years.

I store videos and photos on an external HD, backed up locally and on BackBlaze as well as using the iCloud. But for that I use a MacMini M1 rather than my MB Air.

The local hard drives are multiple terabytes.

For those uses, I’ll agree with everyone else and say that the M1 MacBook Air is more than enough. I recently purchased one myself and can’t see why I’d spend more for a Pro or even the M2 Air.

Leaning towards the M1 Air with just 8G ram and 512G storage but even that's splurging now. No serious work will be done on this machine, just shopping and cat videos.

Looked at cheaper lenovos and Dells for about two minutes. Not that shit again.

Thanks guys.

Likely the Air.

However...
I bought and returned and swapped an Air for a Pro one time.
I could detect a more noticeable lag in the Air when in the photo app and with over 30,000 photos in it. It just didn't feel quite as snappy as I thought it should. Also heavy video editing might be a difference.

I had the funds and typically don't trade up very often so I have gotten the 15" Pro twice so far. Max memory and one TB. Yea...$$$$

Also the Air will make a nice hand me down to a kid or someone later if you upgrade in a few years...

Keying this in on a 2020 M1 MacBook Air. Absolutely love it. It weighs less than a current iPad with a Logitech case + keyboard. It seriously outperforms any iPad. Ventura OS is amazing. I have a snap-on hard cover for it, and a nice Mosiso padded sleeve. It will serve me for years.