The depth of this article is wonderful. The PowerPC line did have lots of good things going for it, and the Mac mini G4 is a good example of how much you can get done with modest space, power and heat.

I'm still using Mac mini G4s in several places, both for Mac OS X (legacy Final Chop) and as small, low power servers running NetBSD.

There are really only two drawbacks to the Mac mini G4, in my opinion:

Gigabit ethernet would've been a dollar or two more? Being stuck with 100 Mbps, or around 300 Mbps if one uses a gigabit USB adapter, isn't fun.

If the DIMM slot could take 2 gig DIMMs, this'd be a perfect machine. Other PowerPC Macs could take 2 gigs - heck, even the older PowerPC 604e Power Macs 9500 and 9600 could take 1.5 gigs - so being limited to 1 gig is a bit unfortunate, especially considering that 2 gig DDR DIMMs are a thing (later Xserve G5 units could take 2 gig DDR DIMMs).

Still, the Mac mini G4 is the only computer aside from SBCs that I've bought brand new, and I have always been very happy with my decision.