More appealing for the Mac mini’s traditional budget market will be the M6 model, which starts at a far more manageable $899. That, however, is still a $100 increase over the M4 model from 2024 that it replaces. Worse, the M4 model started at just $599 until June, when Apple responded to the ongoing memory crunch by imposing brutal price hikes. In other words, the cheapest entry point to Apple’s desktop Mac ecosystem has jumped by $300, or 50 percent, in the space of two months.
The $899 version isn’t exactly a state-of-the-art build, either. The entry-level configuration comes with 16GB of RAM and just 256GB of storage. We should note that it is possible to get this spec for $799, but only if you’re an education buyer. Of note, the Mac mini is not available for the Apple Upgrade program either.
The price hike is likely to weaken the Mac mini’s appeal among budget buyers, but (aside from the necessity to accommodate increasing component costs) Apple may not care. In his report predicting that a new mini was on the way, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman noted that the machine had become increasingly popular for running AI applications locally, and that Apple was struggling to meet demand. The company may not mind if fewer customers are prepared to pay the asking price, since there are plenty of AI fans ready to take their place.
Those AI fans will likely be tempted by a new model with a new chip. Apple boasts that the M6 delivers “gains across every dimension of performance” and “the ideal balance of performance, power efficiency, and on-device AI to effortlessly fly through daily tasks, coding, and creative projects.”
Another surprise is how early Apple has announced the new Mac mini. Pre-orders are open now, but it won’t go on sale until 22 September, almost a month from now.
