If I want to work on android studio should I buy macbook air M1 chip 8gb RAM or 16gb RAM ??

You might be able to work with 8, but 16 would be a safe bet.

IntelliJ IDEs are a memory hog regardless of the platform, better go with 16 GB. Also, be mindful about Air as it doesn't have fan so processor may thermal throttle.

100% with Kushal on this. Apple Service Store’s advice is “don't program on MacBook Air if you're worried about rapid heating and battery discharge”. 🥲

If you have to choose between a slightly faster CPU and more memory, always choose more memory. Your machine will be useful longer.

I'd have adviced buying a Windows laptop and run Linux on it but then Android/iOS app build times are crazy fast on Apple Silicon.

The only time I've felt a bit of heat (nothing compared to i7 MBPs idle heating) is when I had to run entire Typescript repo's tests (Which run in parallel and on all cores). Took around 10mins and made it a bit warm (can still be placed on lap). Otherwise I'm using multiple VS Code windows, node servers, docker, etc and don't face much issue with performance or heating on M1 Air. Having said that, if I was buying a machine today, I'd lean towards the new Pros which have much better everything (esp display).

8gb ram Macbook Air M1 chip costs around 76k Same model with 16gb ram costs around 1.03lakh so not sure is it worth buying 16gb ram. My work will be in react native but not heavy projects medium size projects. Totally confused if I should go for 16gb or not.

Try for student discount? Upgrade prices for Apple products are always outrageous. But nothing we can do about it sadly.

@echoing-computer-87366 where are you seeing those prices? The prices on Apple website are higher.

Croma also has less price for apple products + bank discounts , if affordable you can go for macbook pro 13inch one .

@careful-pencil-2826 I am getting 10% discount + 6k cashback on apple authorised store

You will never think "Damn, this computer is running so smooth, I should've bought an inferior machine instead". But you will, almost 100%, think "Damn, should've gotten more RAM". So...