Bought a M1 Mac mini after reading the rave reviews on YouTube and elsewhere. E.g., over here an enthusiastic person writes:

My 2021 MBA M1, 8GB, 256GB just works waaaay faster than my 2018 MacMini i7 (6-core 3.2GHz), 32GB, 500GB ssd

But not impressed with it:

• In my tests it performs the same as a Beelink PC I have with Intel i5 8th generation processor – which I believe is a mid to even low end processor btw. For the test I used the program I use to make the digital paintings I sell on sidstick.com. The Beelink has twice the RAM and SSD and costs less than the Mac. I am not suggesting that an Intel i5 PC is faster than M1 Mac mini, but that a Mac mini is not always faster than a PC.

• No way to change the scroll direction of the mouse from Natural to “Un-natural” (what windows user would expect) [1].

The pros are:

• Yes, it looks nice like all of apple products which emphasize form over function. e.g., it has all the ports on the back which gives it a clean look when one sees it from the front but its very inconvenient to have to reach to the back to replace cables.
• It has a premium feel to it not necessarily because its better but because you paid more for it
• You can impress your friends. Apple products naturally appeal to the vain types. After all why else would anyone pay 2x for the same thing.
• MacOS for some reason is more snappy than Windows. It boots faster. Applications also startup faster.
• Very silent. No fan noise.