The Mac Mini got a nice refresh, but it is still limited in CPU, has no real GPU, doesn't have much drive space. So to turn it into a nice deskop machine, you have to get an external GPU enclosure and an external drive bay. At which point the whole desk is covered by computer parts stringed together. Makes any beige box look elegant in comparison. I really wonder when someone makes a box which has slots for a graphics card, drives and a mac mini...
The iMac Pro is quite nice. But extremely expensive, the computer is tied and limited to the 27" screen (which I consider on the small side), you are tied to the graphics card ordered (not sure how the top choice compares to a full desktop card), CPUs are Xeons, so quite expensive for what they do, RAM and SSD are not accessible, not even the cooling fans can be cleaned (and eventually cooling fans have to be cleaned). Once again limited to external drives.
The standard iMac now offers an i9 CPU which seems to be a sweet spot, but you don't get the same graphics cards as the iMac Pro, but at least accessible RAM. For all iMacs of current design, its a $300 bill to get anything done on the inside, due to the glued nature. A non-glued iMac would become instantly more attractive. But all have in common that you are limited to the builtin screen which you have to dispose of, once you don't use the contained computer any more.
And what is a very practical limitation: they don't have any screen inputs. I would like to connect my (work) MacBook Pro to my iMac screen, but that is not possible. Sometimes I even used via VNC screen sharing out of desparation, but that sucks.
The iMac Pro is quite nice. But extremely expensive, the computer is tied and limited to the 27" screen (which I consider on the small side), you are tied to the graphics card ordered (not sure how the top choice compares to a full desktop card), CPUs are Xeons, so quite expensive for what they do, RAM and SSD are not accessible, not even the cooling fans can be cleaned (and eventually cooling fans have to be cleaned). Once again limited to external drives.
The standard iMac now offers an i9 CPU which seems to be a sweet spot, but you don't get the same graphics cards as the iMac Pro, but at least accessible RAM. For all iMacs of current design, its a $300 bill to get anything done on the inside, due to the glued nature. A non-glued iMac would become instantly more attractive. But all have in common that you are limited to the builtin screen which you have to dispose of, once you don't use the contained computer any more.
And what is a very practical limitation: they don't have any screen inputs. I would like to connect my (work) MacBook Pro to my iMac screen, but that is not possible. Sometimes I even used via VNC screen sharing out of desparation, but that sucks.