Monday September 21, 2026 10:08 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The first reviews of the new Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro chip options have been published ahead of the computer launching this Tuesday.

While the Mac mini now starts at $899 in the U.S., up from just $599 for the previous model when it first launched, WIRED's Luke Larsen said it is "still a good deal" because of the impressive performance of the M6 and M5 Pro chip options. To borrow a famous Steve Jobs phrase, it just might not be such an "insanely great" deal anymore.
This is the gist of most Mac mini reviews published today: the new model is extremely capable, including for AI, but the $300 price increase is unfortunate. Apple said it has raised prices on many products due to the ongoing memory chip shortage, with the company passing on the skyrocketing prices of RAM and storage chips to customers.
Here are some other Mac mini reviews: Tom's Guide, CNET, Engadget, 9to5Mac, and Six Colors.
Apple's unusually timed announcement of new Mac mini and Mac Studio models this week was driven by unexpectedly strong enterprise appetite for AI hardware, according to The Information. Apple normally releases new Mac models in the autumn, closer to October or November, making this week's announcement unusually early, falling just before the anticipated arrival of new iPhone models. The...
Tuesday September 15, 2026 9:38 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The first unverified benchmark result for Apple's new M6 chip surfaced in the Geekbench 7 database today, offering a look at the chip's performance gains. The new Mac mini will be Apple's first device to be equipped with the M6 chip, which is 2nm. Here is how the M6 chip scored: Single-core CPU score: 4,071 Multi-core CPU score: 22,783 Here are the average M5 chip scores for...
Apple today announced the next-generation Mac mini, which can be configured with an all-new M6 chip or the M5 Pro chip released earlier this year. The M6 chip is equipped with a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU, up from a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU in the M5 chip. In addition, the M6 chip features the first-ever dual Neural Engine with two 16-core engines, up from one in previous chips. The M6 ...