Don't do it. I bought M1 Air instead of M1 14" Pro to save money and now I regret it. The Pro's display and speakers are much better I now watch movies on work M1 14" Pro.

M2 Air might be good too, I don't know. But if I could go back, I'd go to M1 Pro.

Yeah, I did exactly this. My colleague was raving about the M2 Air, and I looked into it, compared it with M1 Pro, and told myself: this one's worth it (things like the fantastic screen and available ports). I did buy my M1 Pro on sale, but I only saved a couple hundred EUR compared to release price. As a pro relatively late adopter I didn't have much transition difficulty because everything was ported, as a con I missed out on a few months of support (for resale value / EOL etc). Compared to the MBP 2015 (which didn't get the update to macOS 13) I was using: it never gets hot, the fans barely ever spin, it probably uses a lot less W so saves me energy, yet its a lot more powerful.

The only thing I miss on my M1 Pro, is USB-A (which I'm invested in, e.g. my YubiKeys and something like a HackRF or Proxmark), but its got 3 (!!) USB-C and I got adapters. I would've gone to Framework, but while the Linux desktop has come from a long, long way (my reference point being I started using WMs in the 90s, with my first being FVWM on RedHat 5.2) I prefer macOS with a plethora of FOSS utilities, and I am not disappointed by macOS on the ARM-based M-series. With a Framework, I could open it up myself and it seems pretty idiot-proof. I love the modularity of the ports but in the end they're just internal USB-C adapters. So while aesthetically nice, with 3 USB-C (and a SD and HDMI) I'm good to go.

I have an M1 Max (work) and M1 Pro (private), but I seriously considered getting an Air M2. Why? It is much more compact and lighter than the MacBook Pro, which is really nice for travel. But yeah, the M1 Pro with discounts was to enticing, because I could get one with 32 GB RAM.

I recently picked up an m2 14". It's fucking delightful, it's true that it's a pound heavier (which is about 40% heavier). But in a bag that pound doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to me.

The inclusion of the HDMI port, and generally how far along we are in the usb-c transition, means that I can probably get away without one of those mini dock dongles that generally are no more than a few usb-a ports, an HDMI port and maybe an ethernet port. I have a couple of tiny usb-c(male) to usb-a(female) in my bag for interfacing if I need to.

Previously I had a 13" M1 work machine and it was also great but skated a bit too close to the 'air' sun. It was almost perfect except I felt like I had to carry that stupid mini-dock dongle with me just about everywhere given that it only had 2 ports, one of which was probably going to be for power. (and no magsafe... boooooo)