I've decided it's time to purchase my first Apple computer. I'm currently using a 2016 Lenovo Carbon X-1 Yoga 2-in-1. It has a 14-inch 2K display, i5 CPU, 8 GB RAM, and 256 GB SSD. It's not upgradeable to Windows 11 and the SSD is almost full. Obviously it's getting long in the tooth. But it still performs adequately for most of my needs. I mostly use my laptop for email, document drafting, websurfing, and accessing cloud services. I travel but I'm not a road warrior so weight and size aren't huge factors. One reason for wanting to upgrade is that it's getting harder to read the 14 inch 2K screen without reading glasses. (I'm in my 60s.)
Given my needs and the fact my outdated Windows laptop still meets them, I'm sure any MacBook, including the 8GB base models, will drastically outperform my current laptop. Nevertheless, I'm going to overdo it per my usual. The candidates are (1) a 15 inch M2 Air with 16GB unified memory and 512 GB storage, or (2) a 14 inch M3 Pro with the same unified memory and storage. The difference in price is $100. The extra ports, superior display, and marginally more powerful processor on the Pro are attractive but will I wish the display was bigger than 14 inches? I can read the lower quality 14 inch Lenovo screen now with glasses. Will the much higher quality Apple screen make up for not going up an inch in size?
I'm not totally adverse to a base 16 inch MacBook Pro. However, my first 2 choices are probably already overkill for what I "need." I'm not convinced it's worth another $700 to $800 for the 16 inch display even if it comes with an M3 Pro chip (that I don't need) and even more unified memory. However, I could be convinced if the larger screen means greater readability and ease of use. What's your advice?