New iMac vs Mini + upcoming Apple display

[Jacobi]

I'm torn between springing for a new 2019 iMac or waiting to see what the upcoming Apple display holds, and getting that with a Mac mini instead. If the display has a better camera and connectivity than the current iMac, that may be a good reason to wait. I'm not necessarily interested in a larger size -- I actually would prefer if they released both the 31" and a middle option like 24".

Anyone else in this boat?

 

[christianhg]

I guess I'm in a similar boat. I'd like a new desktop Mac, but my dilemmas are as follows:

a) I can't justify buying the iMac at its current state*
b) I wouldn't know what monitor to pair with the Mac Mini**

* I'm mainly disappointed that the cooling system hasn't been replaced.
** LG UltraFine looks nice enough, but I'm not sure I want a monitor that only has USB-C ports.

 

[Jimmdean]

I like the Mini but I always end up ruling it out based on GPU. Maybe eGPU will take off, but we aren't there yet. When eGPU is as easy as external SSD (Samsung T5) then I'll take another look. You also can't discount that the iMac is a pretty good display.

I'm a big fan of the iMac, and while we know there is probably no wholesale redesign of its cooling ala iMac Pro (based on the one rear photo available to us) it didn't exactly need a wholesale redesign - there was plenty of room in the cavity to simply use a better (bigger) fan. Even if nothing else changed if the fan were simply quieter a lot of the 2017 i7 people would have fewer complaints.

I have to give Apple the benefit of the doubt that with the extended period since the last release they would have improved an obvious "problem" that the engineers would have clearly noticed, especially after everything they learned as part of designing the iMac Pro cooling.