What do you think the price of the M3 Mac Mini will be?

[RumorChaser]

Currently have an ancient 2013 iMac with 16/256(SSD), and it has been hanging along fine with OCLP for my mobile development needs. I consciously do not run a lot of the heavy applications like Android studio/emulator together with XCode/Simulator and VirtualBox VM. So for my next machine I'm determined to get >=24 RAM/>=256 Storage with external storage attached (am not interested in discussing the requirements because it has been discussed 1000 times).

The only question for me is if I should wait for the M3 mini (it will likely arrive in late 2024 or early 2025 given we just got M2 mini). Currently the M2 Mini costs $600/$800/$1000 for the 8/16/24 RAM options. If I'm getting the M2 Mini I might as well buy it as soon as possible (because no retailers run sales on the BTO models). But if Apple end up keeping the $600/$800 price while upgrading the RAM to 12/24, then it seems worthwhile for me to wait to save $200. If Apple instead charges more (for example $700/$1000 for the 12/24 respectively) then I might as well go for the M2 now.

TL;DR: I'm interested in hearing what people think the M3 mini would be priced at. (I know all we have are guesses, would love to hear some reasoning behind the guesses as well)

 

[theorist9]

There are exceptions, but Apple usually keeps the base price the same when it upgrades a generation, and sometimes even lowers it. E.g., according to https://www.macworld.com/article/673637/mac-mini-apple-silicon-m1-2020-release-date-price-specs.html, the M1 Mini's starting price was $699, while the M2 Mini starts at $599—$100 less. Yes, the M2 Air cost more than the M1 Air, but the former had a new case design.

But: I've no idea how Apple will handle pricing if they upgrade the base RAM, since that's not something they've done in years—it's been 8 GB on the Mini since 2018. And I really don't think there's any way for anyone to predict that.

Thus, in the absence of any basis for prediction, I'd say you've got an unweighted random chance (50:50) that the price will either stay the same or increase (and if it does increase, ~$100 seem plausible).

 

[RumorChaser]

the M1 Mini's starting price was $699, while the M2 Mini starts at $599—$100 less. Yes, the M2 Air cost more than the M1 Air, but the former had a new case design.

When M2 Air was launched in mid 2022, there was still some supply issues. M2 mini was launched half a year later (when prices of RAM/SSD components were dropping by 25%~30% in 6 months) so Apple had room to price it lower.

I don't think Apple even has an idea how they will price the M3 minis yet considering how far away it is and how much the component pricing can change the equation for them. But the M3 Air should be set in stone at this point, and it will probably not be more expensive than the M2 Air.