MacBook Air 12 Inch 2017

If you can get one in good condition(make sure all the keys on the keyboard work) Amazon is pretty good about this in my experience. It will do basic things just fine. Web browsing, type something, backup iPhone/ipad. That’s all I use my 2017 12” for and it’s fantastic. Love the lil thing so much. Rumors are Apple might someday eventually release the 12” again with m1 or a series mobile cpu but these aren’t confirmed.

Pros

• It is a very portable Mac. It weighs in at only 2.03 pounds. The lightest notebook that Apple now sells, the 13" M2 MacBook Air, weighs 2.7 pounds – 33% more.
• Despite having a fairly weak Intel CPU, it should feel pretty snappy for a lot of everyday use, thanks to the SSD.
• The screen is very good, even if it is on the small side.

Cons

• It's old enough that it won't be long until Apple stops offering repair parts and hardware service for it (if they have have not done so already).
• It has one of the infamous butterfly keyboards – and the keyboard service program has expired. I believe that the keyboard and some other components inside the case have to be replaced as a unit. (That means that if dirt gets trapped inside the keyboard, causing malfunctions, it may be very expensive to replace the keyboard - if you can find anyone with the parts to do that at all.)
• It can't run anything later than Ventura. Ventura is still one of the "most recent three" that get security patches – and the most "love" from application vendors. Two years from now, it probably won't be.
• Apple transitioned their whole line of Macs from Intel processors to Apple Silicon ones. There are already some features that are available only on Apple Silicon Macs. As time goes on, application vendors may be tempted to drop support for Intel-based Macs, as well.