I'd say the only alternative is another Mac. An iMac is a fantastic work tool (I use this for work), but if you need portability, go for any of the Mac laptops. I had the 13 inch MBP (without Touch Bar) and it was the best combination of size, performance and power. Only problem was I needed the dedicated video card so I had to upgrade to the 15 inch which has the touch bar that I hate. I don't recommend upgrading to Catalina unless you are sure you won't use 32 bit apps. I have Sid Meier's Pirates, Civilization VI and SimCity4 Deluxe and now they don't work. I have to wait for the developers to release a patch, if they ever do. But yeah, I did the research, tried out different laptops (Dell XPS) and none compare to even the lowest level Mac laptop. The fan noise, the display, the touch panel, the OS, all are inferior experiences to a Mac. And, if you want to use Windows, only Macs have Bootcamp built-in, allowing you to boot into other operating systems. Its kind of sad, but there just isn't any viable competitor out there.