I am more and more considering setting myself up with a complementary mac computer for those little things the windows version doesn’t do yet.
Already having a good PC setup, that is not something I want to invest a lot of money on.
I see Mac minis are somewhat affordable. More even : easy to come by used/refurbished.
How good/bad of an idea would running Scrivener on one of those be ?
Sounds like a great idea. Are you concerned about anything specifically? (e.g. hardware specs)
Well… First, note that I know nothing macwise.
Of course, I’ll be looking for decent ram, CPU and disk space, but other than that, consider me a complete ignorant at this point.
That computer would probably (very very probably) have no other purpose than running Scrivener.
If I have a concern at this point, it would be about M1 processor compatibility. (?) (I’ve seen on the net that this is some sort of problem for some people - no direct mention of Scrivener tho.)
For the rest, I’ll be relying a bit on you guys to tell me what to be concerned about. 
Intel or Apple (e.g. M1) doesn’t matter regarding Scrivener, it’s built for both (universal app).
M1 could be an advantage in terms of future proofing, since it’s by definition impossible to find a very old machine with little or even no support anymore from Apple, OS updates and so on (usually for seven years after the last year a specific Mac model was sold).
Do you want Dark Mode? Then you’d have to look for hardware that supports macOS Mojave (10.14). Just as an example.
I assume you want to share your existing peripherals (display, keyboard, mouse, or just some of them) with the Mini?
I couldn’t care less. (Assuming you meant some specific theme or something.)
I am already happy as it is with “default”.
As much as possible, yes.
Very good to know. Thanks.
So, I think setting up the peripherals for easy switching could be the “biggest” hurdle. Depending on your devices (e.g. display with basic KVM functionality, wired or Bluetooth keyboard & mouse, etc). But that would be the same case with two PCs.
Basically it boils down to two questions now: Display resolution and future proofing. Other than that, every Mini with 8 Gigs of RAM and an SSD and that runs the minimum OS version required by Scrivener will work just fine. It’s not very demanding.
Is Monterey too old ?
. . . . . . . .
For what? It’s the current version.
Example :
Says the OS is Monterey. So I thought it was old.
It probably won’t get many (or any) major updates after Monterey (current version), but that’s more than good enough. Maybe pick one with or upgrade to 8 Gigs of RAM.
And the remaining question of course: What kind of display would the Mini have to output to at full resolution and 60 Hz.
1920 x 1080
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HDMI
Yeah, that’s no problem. Mac mini (Late 2014) - Technical Specifications
A couple of years ago I took the plunge and bought a second-hand Mac Mini and liked it so much that last year I replaced it with a 2018 model with 16GB Ram, again second-hand.
It’s now my daily computer, but I have 2 monitors on my desk for when I do need the PC too.
have you considered switching to Mac entirely? You can additionally install Windows on the Mac, if you need it. But then for many reasons I would advise you to buy a M1 Mini.
How do you go about the peripherals ? Do they share keyboard and mouse ? Printer, usb hub and whatnot ?
Are your two computers networked ?