I've been out of the house all day (6+ hours) with my M1 Pro and it's only just starting to get close to needing to be plugged in. What have I been doing all day? Just running the 23 different docker containers required for my local dev environment. This thing is an absolute beast.
Do you think the new M3 Air w/16 GB could be comparable CPU wise to the M1 Pro? I am guessing GPU wise (for inference like apps) it probably falls behind.
CPU was never the problem with the Air it's the thermal system. Depending on what you're doing the device simply can't soak up enough heat and so it ends up throttling the CPU.
It takes a long operation e.g. compilation for 10-20 mins before it really starts to fall behind the Pro models.