I'm with you on having the flexibility to pick up the device and work away from the desk even if it's just on the sofa for a change to scenery.
Yeah, its nice to be able to sit with the missus in the living room in the evening and be borderline sociable and just sit somewhere that isn't my desk.
What tasks are you finding that the regular m1 struggles with as I'd have thought even it would be enough for most workflows? The only times I've heard folk say the M1 air struggles is running multiple apps on the 8gb model.
I'm a programmer so i'm running 20-30 chrome tabs, dev tools, scripts, servers, about 5 other lightweight programs like music, bear, messages and then the biggies are running a few instances of VS Code along with photoshop at times.
Oh and i'm running dual monitors. 1440p and a 4K.
Honestly it has no right to work as well as it does but its certainly chugging at times. I quit my job a week and a half ago so had to return the macbook pro they provided and needed a stop gap between now and when my new MBP arrives and I thought the safest bet was a mac mini as there is almost 0 chance of scratching it as I will be returning it as soon as the new machine arrives.
