Programming: The only reason I'd be tempted to go for the Studio is so I could get 32GB of memory, but TBH 16GB w/ M1 is more than enough for the vast majority

Programming: The only reason I'd be tempted to go for the Studio is so I could get 32GB of memory, but TBH 16GB w/ M1 is more than enough for the vast majority of programming workloads (or at least the type of work I do), and is a very compelling buy at only $899. If you've already got a monitor, mouse, keyboard you like - no real reason to not want it. To move to 32GB of memory means you need an M1 Pro, Max, or Ultra...so you're either going for a Mac Studio for $1999+, or a 14" MBP w/ RAM upgrade for a minimum of $2399. You get a better CPU and GPU with the studio than the MBP for less money. Assuming you get minimal benefits from the better CPU, is it worth it spend the extra $1200+ to go from 16GB to 32GB of RAM? Probably depends how long you plan on keeping the machine I guess. Gaming: I have no idea...gaming is the only reason I boot up my Windows PC. The M1 GPU seems solid but the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra do have measurably better GPUs. They all do great in certain synthetic benchmarks, but real-world performance is another question entirely. The vast majority of games will not be written for M1 natively, so you'll be running them via the Rosetta 2 x86 translation layer, which also will impact game performance.