Apple has been busy in the past few months launching new Macs powered by the cutting-edge M3 family. We’ve seen updates to the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and iMac, but so far, there’s no sign of the Mac Mini M3 (2024).
Strangely, there haven’t been many reports about Apple working on a Mac Mini M3, aside from a Bloomberg report back in August 2023. Renowned Apple expert, Mark Gurman, speculated that a Mac Mini M3 could be in the works after spotting an unknown codename for an unreleased Mac.
Since then, there’s been little reference to an upcoming Mac Mini. We’re still confident that we’ll see one emerge in the coming weeks, as it’s now the only entry-level Mac that hasn’t been upgraded with the base M3 chip following updates to the MacBook Air, MacBook and iMac ranges.
Keep reading on for everything we know so far about the rumoured Mac Mini M3 (2024) desktop PC.
Release Date
The Mac Mini M3 has previously been touted for an early 2024 release, at least according to Mark Gurman via Bloomberg.
Apple recently unveiled the new MacBook Air with an M3 chip, while there are many rumours indicating we could see an M3-powered iPad Pro very soon too. As a result, it’s fair to assume that a M3-powered Mac Mini could be on the cards sooner rather than later.
The existing Mac Mini M2 first launched in January 2023, so it’s now been over a year since the dinky desktop PC has received an update. We’d be very surprised if we didn’t see it released before the end of the year.
Specs
Mark Gurman has reported that the “next-generation Mac Mini” appears to have gone into testing, stating that Apple is currently trying out a device with 8 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores and 24GB of unified memory.
From what we currently know about the M3 series of chips, we’d expect the standard M3 version of the Mac Mini to sport 8 CPU cores, 10 CPU cores and, likely, start with 8GB of unified memory. This is the same offering that the new MacBook Air features.
For the M3 Pro configuration of the Mac Mini, you can expect a start of 12 CPU cores and 18 GPU cores. The new M3 series will mean that the Mac Mini can now offer Apple’s Dynamic Caching feature too.
For ports and connectivity, it seems unlikely that will change, with the M3 series MacBook Pro models that launched offering up the same standards across the range, so it’ll likely be Thunderbolt 3 (Thunderbolt 4 for the M3 Pro model), Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 once again.
Design
We’re not expecting Apple to make any modifications to the design. It didn’t make any changes to the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro this generation, so we’re expecting that same strategy to continue with the Mac Mini.
That means you’ll still be getting a portable desktop PC with a dinky footprint. The existing Mac Mini M2 only weighs 1.18 kg, while the M2 Pro version is slightly heavier at 1.28kg.
The Mac Mini currently has a healthy port selection, which includes Thunderbolt 4, Ethernet, HDMI and USB-A, so we don’t expect any changes made in this department either.
If we do hear any further details on the Mac Mini M3 (2024) we’ll make sure to update this guide as soon as possible.
Opinion
The Trusted Take
I find it very odd that there’s been so little word on the Mac Mini M3 (2024), despite the recent launch of the M3-powered MacBook Air. It would be an odd move for Apple to delay this update much further, especially now that it’s the only entry-level Mac that hasn’t moved onto the third generation of Apple Silicon.
But we all know what Apple is like, as the company has often caught us all off guard with a surprise announcement. And since Apple is probably only going to treat the Mac Mini to a processor upgrade, with no design tweaks seemingly planned, I’m confident it won’t be long until it appears on the Apple store.
