I got an M4 as a new work machine and it is absolutely bonkers how much faster and quieter it is. And the battery lasts forever, even when running my dev setup. I can actually go and work at a coffee shop for a couple hours without taking the charger now.
Same here. My slightly older M2 MacBook Air seems to be allergic to electricity. I wouldn't be afraid of leaving the house without a charger before a full day's work, as long as I'm not planning to run compute-heavy stuff the entire time.
