Apple’s upcoming Mac desktops may cost more, but not for the reason you might think

1 day ago

2 minutes read

Apple's upcoming Mac desktops may cost more, but not for the reason you might think

This week, Apple introduced a slew of new Macs with M5 chips — and revealed an interesting new trend. More basic storage, but at slightly higher prices. This affected the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

For now, the M4 versions of the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and iMac remain with their old pricing plans — but that may change with the M5 lineup.

This is a weekly fix

With the M5 MacBook Air, Apple has increased the base storage from 256GB to 512GB – corresponding to a $100 price increase.

This is great for most people, as previously you had to pay $200 to get that level of storage. Actually, the MacBook Air is cheaper if you already pay for 512GB of storage.

The same price adjustment came for the base 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5. It went up by $100, but now comes with 1TB of storage as standard. Sure, it costs more than it used to initially, but if you previously bought 1TB of storage space, it’s great.

Things are a little different with the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros. Those get 1TB of storage by default, but at a $200 price increase. So, you just pay for more storage, without any real added value.

Apple touts Fusion Architecture for M5 Pro and M5 Max chips with 'super cores' | Apple's promo image for the new chips

What’s next

Apple’s desktop lineup hasn’t been affected, but we’ll see similar changes with future models. I’m a little surprised they haven’t, but it might not be too far off.

For the next versions of the Mac mini, Mac, and Mac Studio, we will likely see similar price changes:

iMac: $1299 → $1399 with 512GB as new standard
Mac mini: $599 → $699 with 512GB as the new standard
Mac Studio: $1999 → at least $2199 for 1TB as new standard

With the Mac mini and iMac, I will have no problems with the price adjustment. 256GB of storage is literally a joke in 2026, so if you’re someone who already pays for more storage, it’s actually a better value for you.

On the other side of that argument, I’d also like to see consumers pay less out of the gate for 512GB of storage, rather than buying 256GB and ending up with a slow Mac because their storage is full and macOS can’t rely on swappable memory — or have to upgrade soon after because their storage needs to change.

Mac Studio, on the other hand, is a bit of a mixed bag. With the M5 Max MacBook Pro, Apple began to include 2TB of storage automatically, and as a result – the M5 Max upgrade costs more than it did with the M4 Max. For that reason, Mac Studio can cost more than $2199 for the next generation.

Finish it

Ultimately, this is all speculation. However, given Apple’s changes to most of the Mac lineup this week, it almost seems like a lock for everything else to come. As things stand right now, Apple hasn’t adjusted any of their integrated memory amounts despite the RAM issue, so that doesn’t seem like an immediate concern.

How do you feel about Apple supercharging its computers and installing more primary storage? Have you always been a stickler for basic storage though? Let us know in the comments.