I got my MacBook Air M1, 16GB in December. After installing BigSur 12.1 on Feb. 7th, the machine got extremely hot. Not only the body was affected but also the right side of the display cover got hot.
You could see the battery drain in warp speed in the preferences pane.
After three calls with the Apple support, my machine was mailed in to the repair service on Thursday 11th. I got it back on Tuesday 16th. This was really fast and I was impressed.
The display and battery were replaced.
Now the display flickers, even after reinstalling the OS and setting the display to not change the light according to the ambient light. Hardware diagnose did not find any error.
So after having a 45 minute call with the support my machine gets back to repair again.
An upgrade to a MacBook Pro or the exchange to a new machine is not possible.
I think the Air is not worth recommending.
Although the Air is as integrated as an iPad that works just fine, the form factor seems not to be made for a productive machine.
If you have to decide between the Pro and the Air I would definitely go for the Pro.