Was going to get the midnight MBA M2 with 24gb ram and a 1TB but I see the space black MBP M3 pro base with 18gb and 512gb is very close in price…

What is better for my use?? I am university student studying engineering and like the portability of MacBooks. The MBA is obviously a bit more portable but I think the MBP is still portable enough considering the overall form when compared to my large windows gaming laptop that I’ve been dealing with so far… would like to run Windows VM (parallels) and do some basic 3D modelling in the VM as well as code on both sides. Some gaming would be a bonus but not necessary.

Just don’t know if dropping the 6gb ram for more CPU/GPU cores + fan is a good idea? Looked at Geekbenchmark stats and it seems like the M3 pro base will give a good increase in performance. But how will the RAM affect my use?? The next level RAM (36gb) is over $400 so that’s a big jump if I do that too… The next level CPU/GPU combo is about $200 though and that is tempting but not sure it’s necessary.

Opinions/suggestions from Mac savvy people?? This will be my first MacOS so I’m really trying to invest in something I wont regret when it wont run something a year or two from now. The MBA does seem pretty functional though.

TIA!