OK, I'll weight in, since the thread started off as I expected but the mac ney-sayers aside, there are pros and cons for the mac mini.

My experience is I've never owned a PC in my life so I can't say, but clearly you can get the same "ability" from a machine for less $. I've been using a mac since appletalk was the rigour de jour for local networking....

My last Mac workstation purchase was a 27" iMac back in December 2009 - it was maxed out at purchase, except for ram, as a custom option. It is:
"2.8Ghz i7, Late 2009"
ATI Radeon 4850 512MB
27" monitor 2560x1440
Came with 4GB RAM, upgraded to 12GB last October (best upgrade ever)

I don't do lots of video, but I do quite a bit of PS and it's never been sluggish with PS. I recently (Xmas) got a gopro3 and so have started video processing - from the ski holidays, I had no problem rendering video to web-quality 720 video from the gopro black very HD cinema quality (~1 hr for a 4GB 25 min cinema video as example)

This iMac is a *long* way from getting replaced as it's as snappy today as the day I bought it (esp after the ram upgrade).
It runs OS X 10.8.2 no problems.

I have a MBAir that I really love because of its SDD HD. The new iMacs look excellent and one is ordered for the office as a built-to-order hybrid (SDD+HDD) and that is an i5, so I can then compare i7 (2009) with i5 (2013), but I don't expect much diff, except for the graphics card (1GB)....

The mac mini looks great as it has similar specs to the imac, but as mentioned above, the imac wins with the hybrid option and maybe the next mini will ship with that... your call.

I *really* detest the new iMac though because of the very serious and real problem of upgrading the ram - basically not at all a user-serviceable thing, which is the single biggest dumbest thing I think Apple have ever done with a desktop model. Maybe it was done to re-inject life into their flailing mac tower lineup????

TBH, I personally wouldn't buy a mini for anything major pro, because the iMac will always exceed the specs for not much more - monitors have a finite life, which I find are roughly equal (5 yrs or so) to the desktop, so the iMac makes sense there (replace desktop, get latest and greatest monitor).

Hope this helps in any way.

VERY expensive yes. Processor, memory, graphics cards and hard drives.. all unique Apple products which justifies twice the cost.

Yes I have heard that they got a intel secret factory hide underground to make sure that the i5 and i7 proccessor they use in the mac are made of gold instead of sillicone like pc one. Also even if the video card they use have the exact same model number that what we use in pc, they apply a trademarked special anti scratch coating on them that justify paying twice the price :P

You can put an SSD in a mini either BTO, or do it yourself easily.

Not sure that is accurate at all. Read some monitor reviews.

Actually, there is very little difference:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

It doesn't read/write anywhere near as fast as an internal drive, especially not a SSD. Not even close.

You're being sarcastic right?

I'm sure he is

Only buy the mini with the independent video, not the build in one.

Didnt see that option online, must be an offer of that kind in the store only.

Yea.. a serious post would be waste of time anyway when having to do with Apple fanatism.

Double post.

You have found very good points ...

Maybe for a PC that's similar to Mac Mini, but I can most certainly buy and build a PC that's better spec'd than a MacPro for even less than 1/2 the price. AND it will run OSX.