We've got about six 2012 MBPs here that I've upgraded to SSDs and added more RAM. They're still amazing machines if a little heavy. (A couple need the HD cable replaced.)

The M1 is amazing as a chip, but until things are recompiled, etc., much of the software isn't going to benefit much (though Apple claims it's "just as fast").

Kinda relatedly, I've been looking at mobile Ryzen laptops but just about all of them (maybe until very recently) have been hobbled by having only 8 GB of soldered RAM. 16 GB versions supposedly exist, but they're always out of stock or otherwise unavailable from Lenovo... Intel doesn't have the same sway with Apple that they do with Lenovo, obviously, but it's good to see how the M platform evolves, and real-world benchmarks.

If you need to jump, understood. But we're going to wait. Especially until Office is native and Teams runs (reasonably well) on it.

With all of that said, laptops don't evolve as fast as phones and cellular networks, especially Apple laptops. They might not have a laptop "M3" out for 5 years - who knows. Presumably the software will mostly catch up by early 2023 or so.

Good luck!

Cheers,
Scott.