OK- after advice from you all and what I can possibly afford (if I sell my Windows Laptop) I could afford a decent m1 mi

[Black]

The M4 is such a jump in performance from even the M2, and was readily available under $500 for the base model.... it's hard to imagine paying over $400 for an M1. As I recall you need 1 TB of storage so whether there's a quarter TB or a half a TB internal isn't going to matter much.