The unique selling point of the Mini is that it has a built-in PSU - I've yet to see a Mini-sized PC that didn't have a whacking great external power brick. So if the specs meet your needs, there's nothing quite as neat as a Mini. Trouble is, with the fiddling small (and expensive to upgrade) SSD and weak Intel baseline iGPU you soon end up with multiple boxes and cables for external storage and eGPU, so that neatness soon goes away.
Obvious alternative is this:
https://simplynuc.co.uk/hades-canyon/ No, its not as neat and pretty as the Mini, but it uses Intel's combined mobile i7 + Radeon graphics chip and so has a better balance between CPU and GPU power - so you're less likely to need an eGPU - and has two internal M.2 slots for storage - so you're less likely to need external storage. It also has decent connectivity, including two TB3s (whichis rare on a PC).
Basically, though, if I were going to the Post Office, I wouldn't start from here - instead of getting a tiny PC then hanging endless external boxes off it, I'd decide what I wanted in terms of processor, internal storage, GPU and PCIe and get something just big enough to accommodate them all. Probably custom-build something around a Mini-ITX or MicroATX board, but if you don't want to do that there are places that will build and guarantee PCs (e.g. off the top of my head
https://www.quietpc.com/systems - but bear in mind they specialise in ultra-quiet/
silent systems, so there's a premium for that).
(That's why Apple's refusal to build a headless system with
modest internal expansion is so frustrating)
...actually, when I bought a 2006 Mac Pro, I did the math and you
really couldn't get a similarly-specced (dual Xeon) PC for the same price. The current iMacs are pretty reasonable value too
if you want a 5k screen (and upgrade your own RAM). Reality check: the people complaining about Apple prices
today are Apple users who have been paying the "Apple Tax" for years, but since ~2016 have seen that going up and up. The infamous display stand (although that's really not something I care about) even shocked an auditorium full of Apple superfans at WWDC.
No, I
want MacOS and am prepared to pay a premium. I don't
need it, and I'm not prepared to pay a $2000 premium.
...who are consequently one of the biggest buyers and makers of consumer electronics components, a field where economy of scale means
everything. The other thing large companies can afford is top-flight accountants who's whole job is to convince shareholders that they're making money hand over fist while convincing the Revenue that they're barely making a penny. The only thing I'd believe about their "margin" figures is that they're computed by some accepted (by accountants) process. The consistent pattern of Apple's results over the last few years has been significantly rising revenue despite fairly stable sales.
<snip>
If the wheels were $999, I’m just as confident that Apple would have made it so that, by the time the Mac Pro ships, the stand is a six month old joke!
