In late 2013, I decided I really wanted a new computer. And after looking at my bank account, I decided that a good way to treat myself without going totally overboard financially would be be the 2012 Mac Mini with the quad-core i7. I liked the machine very much, I eventually upgraded the RAM, but by late 2016, I was no longer happy with the machine's performance.

At that point, I took a look at Apple's lineup and found their machines underpowered, overpriced (at least compared to my budget), and some part of me no longer liked OS X as much as I had initially.

I waited for Ryzen to become available and for the first time in more than a decade, I built my own PC and am now back to using GNU/Linux. About 20 months later, I am very happy with my decision. But I might very well have chosen another Apple machine if they had one with reasonably current hardware, at a reasonable price, which I could have upgraded later on. It is sad, because they sure know how to build a sweet computer.

Note: AFAIK, Apple computers are significantly more expensive in Europe, so the price-performance ratio might be more favorable in the US.