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

Source: 9to5Mac

This week, Apple unveiled a plethora of new Macs with M5 chips – and it revealed an interesting new trend: more base storage, but at slightly higher prices. This impacted the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

At the moment, M4 versions of the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and iMac still remain with their old pricing lineup – but that’s likely to change with the M5 lineup.

This weeks adjustments

With the M5 MacBook Air, Apple raised the base storage from 256 GB to 512 GB – coupled with a $100 price increase. This is great for many people, since you previously had to pay $200 to get that level of storage. Essentially, the MacBook Air got cheaper if you already would’ve paid for 512 GB of storage.

A similar price adjustment came to the base 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M5 (link). It went up by $100, but it now comes with 1 TB of storage as the standard. If you previously bought 1 TB of storage, it became more favorable.

Things differed slightly with the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros. Those got 1 TB of storage by default, but at a $200 price increase. So you’re effectively just paying for the additional storage, with no real added value.

What’s next

Apple’s desktop lineup hasn’t yet been touched, but we’ll most definitely see the same adjustments with future models. I’m slightly surprised they haven’t done it yet, but it’s likely not too far away.

With the next versions of Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Studio, we’ll probably see similar price shifts:

• iMac: $1,299 → $1,399 with 512 GB as the new standard
• Mac mini: $599 → $699 with 512 GB as the new standard
• Mac Studio: $1,999 → at least $2,199 with 1 TB as the new standard

For the Mac mini and iMac, the price adjustment isn’t a major issue. 256 GB of storage is honestly a joke in 2026, so if you already paid for more storage, it actually becomes a better value.

On the flip side, it’s preferable for consumers to pay slightly more up front for 512 GB rather than buying 256 GB and ending up with a slow Mac because storage is full and macOS can’t rely on swap memory – or having to upgrade quickly later.

Mac Studio, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. With the M5 Max MacBook Pro, Apple started including 2 TB of storage by default, and as a result the M5 Max upgrade cost more than it did with M4 Max. For that reason, Mac Studio may cost even more than $2,199 with the next generation.

Wrap up

Ultimately, this is all speculation. However, given Apple’s adjustments across the Mac lineup this week, it almost seems like a lock for everything else that’s yet to come. As things stand right now, Apple hasn’t adjusted any of its unified memory pricing despite the RAM crisis, so that doesn’t seem like an immediate concern.

How do you feel about Apple charging more for its computers while including more base storage? Were you someone who always stuck to the base storage regardless? Let us know in the comments.