Apple M3 MacBook Pro and iMac: price, release date, and how to preorder
This may have been a somewhat low-stakes Apple event for the evening before Halloween, but even if none of these new Macs are radically different, a new generation of M-series chips is nothing to sneeze at. The $1,299 iMac shows that Apple hasn’t totally forgotten about its all-in-one desktop (even if it continues to dash our hopes of getting another 27-inch model). The new $1,599 MacBook Pro 14 with M3, meanwhile, makes the laptop with the good ports more attainable (albeit, with less RAM). Then there’s the $1,999 MacBook Pro 14 and $2,499 MacBook Pro 16, both of which are receiving an annual yet entirely welcome spec bump.
All of these computers are due out in November, with most of them landing on the 7th. We’ll have to see how worthwhile these small improvements are when we review the new Macs, but for now, here’s where you can preorder them if you want to get in on the ground floor.
The 24-inch iMac is back with a modest refresh, offering the lowest barrier to entry for Apple’s new M3 processor. The all-in-one desktop comes in seven colors and starts at $1,299 with an eight-core GPU, an eight-core CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. (It can also be outfitted with a 10-core GPU starting at $1,499.) As for ports, it’s just like the M1 version from 2021, meaning the base model features two Thunderbolt / USB-4 ports while the $1,499 model gets an extra pair of USB-3 ports. Both configurations also now support Wi-Fi 6E.
The new 24-inch iMac is set to ship on November 7th and is available for preorder direct from Apple starting today, October 30th.
Ding-dong! The Touch Bar is dead. And we have the new base-model 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 to thank for it. This new entry point into the MacBook Pro line takes the chassis of the two previous models and cuts the price by reducing RAM and incorporating the base M3 chip. (Previous models only had Pro and Max-series chips.) It’s here to replace the out-of-place MacBook Pro 13 with the M2 chip and its dated Touch Bar.
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 starts at $1,599 — which is $400 less than the M3 Pro-equipped MacBook Pro it shares its body design with. It’s available for preorder from Apple starting today, October 30th, with an expected arrival date of November 7th.
Apple is once again bumping the chips in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, both of which now start with M3 Pro chips and are configurable with the higher-end M3 Max. Aside from a new fingerprint-resistant space black color, the high-end laptops are very similar in design and port layout to the M1 Pro models that first shook up the MacBook Pro landscape in 2021.
Like previous generations, the 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 (preorder at Apple) with an M3 Pro chip, while the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 Pro starts at $2,499 (preorder at Apple). Both models are also set to land on November 7th, with the M3 Max configurations coming at an undisclosed date later in November.