Hate to say it, but... why are you in the market for a Mac? If you aren't already trapped inside the iApple eCosystem, my advice would be STAY AWAY. Apple has been circling the drain for years, (it may not look it because of their artificially inflated bubble stock price and market cap,) but... let's look at facts, not self-serving myths.
1. Apple appears to be edging closer and closer to becoming a cellphone and accessories and music company, that also still for some reason sells computers. The last real computer they produced was the Trashcan Mac, a stupid-looking, overpriced design-esthetics-ABORTION that when it didn't sell like hotcakes, (go figure, people didn't want to dump half the price of a new car on something that looks like a trashcan, can't really be expanded meaningfully, (not inside anyway, TOO SMALL) they basically abandoned it. Like the Mac Mini they abandoned YEARS AGO, it hasn't seen squat in updates since. Also, the last "update" of the Mac Mini was no upgrade. In almost every respect, it was a DOWNGRADE, and you'd be a fool to consider one. Apple's "commitment" to the Mac as a platform should not be taken seriously until they do something to demonstrate that it's not an afterthought.
Apple could have done a lot of work on both, but instead they've been pissing millions or possibly billions of dollars up a flagpole constructing a giant, fancy new "campus" (office building) on some of the most expensive land on Planet Earth, for NO really good goddamned reason, and trying to make a self-driving POS car that will probably never see light of day because face it, the last thing even the most hardened Apple Fanboy wants is an iCar. (Next, I wonder if Apple will try to get into home-building. Why not, it's an untapped market...) So they've been squandering OUR money (that we overpaid them for these various overpriced machines,) and doing nothing productive with it. I say, "don't reward this behavior."
The last really good MacMinis are used and several years old, the last quad-core models. Newer ones have virtually no upgradeability or repairability. The iMac, similarly, is essentially in between the Mini and the Pro, but it comes welded to a monitor and you can't really separate them, because they're designed not to work right if you do. Which is to say, they're designed to work with the monitor integrated. If you don't want to pay a BUNCH of extra money for an Apple monitor welded to the front of your Mac, you're kinda SOL because your only other alternatives in a new Mac are the ugly, overpriced TrashMac, and the MacMini Obsolete Edition.
Now of course, if you have more money than sense, there's the iMac Pro, which takes the MacPro's guts (or an upgraded version thereof, and welds a great, big, overpriced monitor to it. If you're thinking of buying a brand new sport bike, like a Kawasaki Ninja, but decide instead you'd rather have an Apple computer, the iMac Pro is for you. (Seriously. The base iMac Pro starts at $5000, and runs up to just south of FOURTEEN GRAND, fully loaded, provided you don't buy any additional accessories.) Just by comparison:
The Kawasaki Ninja 400 without ABS has an MSRP of $4999, (see
https://www.kawasaki.com/Products/2...LELANDING-_-PRODUCTTHUMBNAIL-_-PRODUCTDETAILS) though MSRP is of course probably inflated to allow for wiggle room in negotiations, to aid in getting financing, etc.
The Kawasaki Ninja 1000, WITH anti-lock brakes, or ABS, is still cheaper than the fully loaded iMac Pro, as is the VERSYS 1000 LT, at just $12,999 (again, MSRP) and you get a MOTORCYCLE for your money.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. There are OTHER computer manufacturers out there, or build your own from parts and probably save money.
As to what to put on one you but from someone else or build yourself, GNU/Linux, what else? You can get somewhere between double and quadruple the raw performance for each dollar you spend if you don't buy something with a fruity little logo stuck on the front of it.
I have a Mac, myself. And I have determined it's my last. I got a REALLY good price on it, but I am fed up with the direction Apple is going in. I've had it with the BS, and I'm exiting the ecosystem when it comes time to do my next round of upgrades.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Apple's going to tumble hard when users get good and fed up, (they will eventually,) with all the stuff that's supposed to just work, that just doesn't. From faulty keyboards, to failing batteries, to security flaws and hacks and interoperability issues, to Apple deciding to force their vision of the "future" down our throats, without any mechanical buttons, without headphone jacks so they can upsell you some headphones that don't do anything meaningfully different from, let alone better than your old ones, except need to be periodically recharged and costing you a BUNCH more money... the way I see it, this high-flying Apple, Inc. is being artificially propped up, I don't think it's sustainable, and they're going to fall SO hard when the bill comes due, when people figure out what the actual value of the company is. It's not going to last forever, I don't think, and here's some evidence of it.
I have been buying Apple products for about 6 years since I reluctantly let myself get dragged into the ecosystem because I wanted a smartphone and computer that actually worked together, and got tired of Android, (that I still largely can't stand,) and despaired of waiting on the empty promise of a "Ubuntu Phone" (hahahahah... still waiting on that,) and all the other vaporware smartphones that didn't pan out. I've reached the point where I'm ready to get a flip phone and they can keep all their "smart" BS. To me, it's a fad, and I've just about outgrown it, so interoperability will become a moot point, and all I really need, without the need for that, GNU/Linux is more than capable of, so I don't need a Mac, or won't in the future, anyway, and I suspect strongly that I'm not alone.
Best of luck with this decision.
Just remember this: when you're considering buying Apple hardware, there's no such thing as "under a thousand dollars". It ends up costing and costing and costing and costing...
