gdgt

Personally, I don't recommend the iMac to anyone because *when* the hard drive dies, it is a royal nuisance to replace it and you will probably want to just take it to the Apple Store and pay them to do it. If you have done a lot of Apple hardware rebuilds over the years, it is do-able, but annoying. Since the iMac is on that pivoting stand, odds are you will move the screen around from time to time, further increasing the odds of killing the drive prematurely. I would never recommend one without an SSD for that reason.

As a recovering Apple fanboy (see my lists if you doubt it), I have stopped recommending Apple and just tell people the following: the only remaining advantage an Apple offers at this point is a relative immunity from the virus plague that afflicts Windows. To be honest, OS X has gotten worse in usability and bugginess over the last few versions, while Windows 7 improved a great deal in both those areas. I would even say that I like a lot of Windows 7 better than a lot of OS X at this point, although there are still some features of OS X that Windows hasn't matched.

So, if you feel that the virus problem in Windows is beyond your control or you are just too impatient to deal with it anymore, then OS X may be better for you. Or, if there are specific pieces of software you want that are OS X only, then go for it. If neither of those is true for you, though, I would seriously consider taking Peter's advice and setting up a Hackintosh first so you can spend some time with OS X and see if you find it worth the extra money.

Personally, I would happily trade my Core i5 MacBook Pro for a comparable PC that would have hardware better supported by Linux because I am at the point that I prefer Ubuntu or Debian to either Windows or OS X. I have this thing set up triple-boot, but I spend 95% of the time in OS X anyway... not because I want to, but because the hardware (especially the trackpad) has enough quirks in the other 2 that it drives me even crazier than putting up with OS X's limitations.

If you are only planning to use the Mac Mini with a TV in order to save the expense of a monitor... you might change your tune after you see how it looks. If you have a really high-quality TV, you might luck out, but the few times I have helped people do this with their Mac Minis, the result looks terrible. I don't know how they can stare at it all day. If they were only using it for media playback, it would be fine. Reading and writing are another story.

Whatever you decide, be aware of the issues before you pay more. You don't want to spend the next 3 years wishing you had bought the cheaper option after all.