I recently bought, back in August, a Mac M1 mini with 512 Gb hard drive and 16 Gb memory. I've owned many Mac computers, they all still work just fine but like everything else with computers and technology they can no longer be updated with the latest OS which subsequently limits their use on the internet.

But, back to your inquiry, since I have already own a couple of displays (I always use 2 displays side by side) and Apple keyboards I was able to get up and running in a matter of, at the most 15 minutes, if not less.

I also purchased a Satechi dock with an additional 1 Terabyte Samsung EVO Plus SSD that mounts in the dock (make sure you order the correct one if you should go that route). The Mac mini sits on top of the Satechi dock (no heating issues whatsoever...there have been some reviews where people are experiencing heating issues).

The Mac M1 mini handles all my photo editing needs (and everything else) nicely. I'm using Photoshop and Lightroom. Quite often, since I use two displays, I have two applications running simultaneously without any performance issues that I can see.

I don't think I could have bought a comparable Mac product for what I paid compared to what I was able to put together with what I already have. For me, it's a great system.