I've come to believe that the "convection is king" myth is just that; A Myth.
I have both conduction and convection vapes in my daily rotation and don't see either style as being superior to the other.
If you find a vaporizer you like and it works for you that's what matters, Vapor is Vapor no matter how your herbs are heated to vaporizing temps.
I agree completely. I think conduction has gotten an undeserved bad reputation. To me, its still a very valid vaporization tech.
I also don't necessarily agree with everything shown in the Conduction vs Convection graphic shown above. For example, I disagree that conduction is harder for a novice to operate. Quite the opposite, in my view. Most conduction vapes are simple to operate and need no technique. With a number of convection vapes, particularly portables, the operator controls the speed of air over the heater...and hence the temp of the air....and puts the operator right in the middle of controlling the process. See some people's view of an FF2, for example, and the technique needed.
The main discriminator, IMO, between conduction and convection is that conduction tend to need to be used in a session format. That is, you pretty much need to vape all that you load in a session. This is due to the oven staying heated between draws and, if you turn it off half way, when reheating and vapign the rest it tends to taste awful to me. Conductions are, to me, vape until complete. Convection vapes tend to support a "one hit and done" approach as vaporization pretty much stops when you quit drawing.
I also agree that most/many convection vapes also have a conduction component as the walls of the oven get hot during a session. Given the temp of the oven walls at the end of a session with my GH, I'm convinced that some portion of the function is from conduction. Can't prove it, but those interior oven walls do get very hot.
I also don't agree that stirring is required for conduction and not convection. I wouldn't propose any such broadly general rule as all vapes/users are a bit different. But if either is the approach that needs stirring, it would be convection in my view (again, the FF2 as an example). With conduction, if you grind fine and tamp well there is often no need to stir at all.
Also, convection tends to have less draw restriction than conduction vapes...but again, GIANT generality for which I'm sure that there are a lot of exceptions.
I love my GH but don't think its for everybody and I can't recommend them until they improve their reliability.
I do have a Flower Mate Pro and its a very servicable vape. If you are looking for something for similar use cases as your FM Mini, you might want to check out the Boundless CFX. Someone mentioned above the Mighty. To me, the CFX is a Mightly like device for less than half the price and also way cheaper than the IQ which looks nice but...wow, $340 or so for a conduction portable. I have had the chance to use a CFX and its a very, very nice portable, particularly for the money. AND, although its a conduction device, no tamping needed and it seems to work very well with either a full load or down to about 1/2 load.
Hope this was helpful.