If 8 GB is ok for you, you don't need an M3 chip with tons of cores, either. You can just keep using your old laptop. Apple has kept the same base memory on these machines for a decade and now they are horribly unbalanced.
I miss nothing. It's great. And contra Windows or Linux laptop integration, it really does have an all-day battery.
Walmart's marketplace has a 500e listed for $92 right now, and it's also mostly compatible with all operatimg systems via Chrultrabook.
Also, it's absolutely hilarious to me that some Chromebooks support macOS better than they support Windows or Linux. In the vast majority of cases, though, Linux has the best support.
[1] https://chrultrabook.github.io/docs/docs/supported-devices.h...