Apple's M6 lands in the iMac and MacBook Pro, prices stay sky-high
On Tuesday 27 October, Apple unveiled an iMac and an entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro running the M6 chip. The laptop costs €100 more and the iMac keeps its June pricing, so it pays to do the maths before you upgrade.
Apple refreshed the iPad mini on Monday, and on Tuesday 27 October 2026 the autumn clear-out continued. The iMac and the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro both move to the M6 chip, as Next reports. The pumpkins aren’t even carved yet and Cupertino has already put its holiday stock on the shelves.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro: M6 and 1TB as standard
The entry-level laptop gets an M6 chip with a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU. The base configuration comes with 16GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage. Apple still promises up to 24 hours of battery life, and Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 are on the spec sheet.
The announcement doesn’t include a single performance figure against the M5 MacBook Pro. Our source doesn’t give any either, so we won’t make any up. On paper, the most visible difference from the previous generation is the price tag.
The prices: €100 more this year, €500 more since the M5
The M6 MacBook Pro starts at €2,299, which is €100 more than the M5 model it replaces. That one launched in October 2025 from €1,799, before every Mac went up in price last June. Over twelve months, then, the entry price has climbed €500. Asking €2,299 for 16GB of base memory is less a price these days than a cover charge: you don’t argue with the bouncer, you just pay to get in.
The iMac wakes up after two years
The desktop gets the bigger jump. Apple hadn’t updated the iMac since 2024 and it was still on the M4. It now goes straight to the M6, in two versions. The €1,799 model has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU and two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports. The €1,999 model steps up to 12 cores and adds four Thunderbolt/USB4 ports, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, a keyboard with Touch ID and a 32GB memory option.
Both versions have 16GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage in the base configuration, plus Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and the colours of the previous generation. Prices haven’t changed since the June increase. Before the summer, though, these two models started at €1,499 and €1,749. So the prices really are stable, as long as you don’t look back past June.
Who should upgrade
Did you buy an M5 MacBook Pro last year? Nothing Apple has published gives you a reason to pay again. Apple claims no measured gains and the battery promise hasn’t changed. If you’re coming from an older machine, getting 1TB of storage in the base configuration takes some of the sting out of €2,299, but not all of it.
The iMac is the easier call. If you were planning to buy one, the new model replaces the old one at the same post-June price and is two chip generations newer. To choose between the two versions, look at the ports before the chip: Ethernet, more than two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports and the 32GB option are only on the €1,999 model. Base storage is 256GB on both, and that fills up faster than you’d think.
From M5 to M6, the chip’s number went up by one and the MacBook Pro’s price went up by €500. Moore’s law is clearly alive and well in Cupertino. It just moved from the transistors to the price tags.
Sources (1)
Written with AI assistance from the sources cited above, then reviewed and approved before publication by Sébastien Soulier.
