I think if you don't need the screen per se (i.e you already have a HDTV you can and wanna connect a Mac to) then the Mini makes for a great little unobtrusive device to play along with. I said 'personally', so I wasn't generalizing. If there is a Haswell upgrade for the Mini soon, chances are the performance gains are in the 6-8% area, just like with the MacBook Air. WillFisher, garycactus, I am thinking of going a similar route: When the Mac mini 2013 comes out, buy a refurbished 2012 model, upgrade it by myself to 16 GB RAM and 2 HDD, and do my own fusion drive. This is maybe another issue for my comparison - chances are slim that Apple redesigns the Mac mini with 4 memory slots (which would make it more easy to upgrade to 32 GB in future). I saw some discussions in other forums mentioning Logic Pro X is rather memory hungry. Mayuka, thanks for the reminder regarding 16 GB of RAM. ) the performance demands rise rather quickly. I agree that not a lot of CPU power is needed these days for basic music production, but especially if you work with 3rd-party plugings (Waves, Kontakt, Reaktor, orchestra plugins. I'm still leaning towards the Mini, although I am still not clear about the differences between the Mini and the iMac beyond the CPU.

Best mac mini for home recording