"Open" is a misnomer, I really wish people would stop throwing it around with regards to ARM systems because it's a serious problem. Apple's devices are no better or worse about this. It's just the nature of the SoC ecosystem.
> Apple Mac Mini perf and battery life
Battery life? You mean the macbook, not the mini, right?
Speaking candidly, if both MNT devices and Apple's devices had perfect upstream support, I'd choose MNT every time regardless of battery life or performance. On a trivial level, I like the design language more, I prefer to buy boutique, etc.
For actual material considerations, MNT overbuilds their stuff to a ridiculous degree. That's what I want out of a laptop more than anything. There's a sense when holding the pocket reform that you could yeet it full send onto the pavement and you'll just scratch the shell. I like that. It might not necessarily be true, but there's a sense of solidity I get from an MNT device that I don't get from an Apple device. I'll take almost any drawback to have something that's overbuilt to hell, and I'll pay a pretty penny for it. The one thing that keeps me away is being locked into a specific distro. If the distribution was minimalist like KISS or Void, or if it was FreeBSD or OpenBSD, this qualm disappears. MNT unfortunately runs a Debian fork, that's a non-starter for me.