Apple’s first touchscreen Mac is a MacBook Pro. The new 14- and 16-inch models put touch on a tandem OLED screen Apple calls PROLED XDR, with the iPhone’s Dynamic Island and M5 Pro or M5 Max chips, Apple announces.
The touch sensor is built into the panel, not layered on top, which Apple says cuts lag. Many apps work with touch right away, since macOS turns touches into clicks, and a redesigned hinge keeps the screen steady.
The macOS menu bar looks the same, but its items expand as a finger moves over them, and the traffic-light window buttons grow when you touch them, Wired reports from an early demo. A new gesture pulls the Dynamic Island down into a floating panel for Siri AI and Spotlight.
In 2021, John Ternus, now Apple’s CEO, told a journalist the Mac is “totally optimized for indirect input.” Now he tells Wired there are “times when it’s comfortable and handy to have touch.”
The screens on the new touchscreen MBPs stack two OLED layers that share the work of lighting each pixel, so each runs at a lower current. Apple says that brings higher peak brightness and a longer-lasting panel.
It peaks at 2,000 nits, with a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio and both P3 and Adobe RGB color. A display engine in the chip tracks each pixel’s wear to reduce burn-in.
The Apple logo on the lid lights up again, too, a decade after the 2016 redesign dropped it. Ternus showed it glowing in an X post:
We’re glowing with excitement over the new MacBook Pro. You’ve gotta touch it to believe it.
Both models are also a bit lighter: the 14-inch weighs 3 pounds, half a pound less than before, and the 16-inch 4 pounds, 0.7 pounds less.
MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display key specs
- Display: 14.2-inch (3024 x 1986) or 16.3-inch (3472 x 2266) PROLED XDR tandem OLED, 254 ppi; 1,000 nits sustained full-screen, 2,000 nits peak (HDR, and SDR outdoors), 1 nit minimum; 10,000,000:1 contrast; P3 and Adobe RGB; ProMotion 10Hz to 120Hz; Multi-Touch; Dynamic Island; nano-texture glass option
- Processor: Apple M5 Pro (15- or 18-core CPU) or M5 Max (18-core CPU); the 16-inch has the 18-core M5 Pro only
- Graphics: 16- or 20-core GPU (M5 Pro), 32- or 40-core GPU (M5 Max), with Neural Accelerators and hardware ray tracing
- Memory: 24GB, 48GB or 64GB (M5 Pro); 36GB, 48GB, 64GB or 128GB (M5 Max)
- Storage: 1TB to 4TB (M5 Pro); 2TB to 16TB (M5 Max)
- Battery: 72.6Wh (14-inch), 100Wh (16-inch); up to 22 hours (14-inch) or 24 hours (16-inch) of video streaming with M5 Pro, Apple says; fast charge to 50% in 30 minutes
- Charging and ports: MagSafe 3, three Thunderbolt 5, HDMI, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack; up to three external displays (M5 Pro) or four (M5 Max)
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread (Apple N1 chip)
- Software: macOS 27
- Size and weight: 14-inch: 1.50 x 31.08 x 21.63cm, 1.38kg (M5 Pro) or 1.40kg (M5 Max); 16-inch: 1.60 x 35.55 x 24.42cm, 1.82kg (M5 Pro) or 1.84kg (M5 Max)
- Colors: Space Black, Silver
- Other: 12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View; six-speaker sound system; three-mic array; Touch ID
Pre-orders for the new touchscreen OLED MacBook Pros are now open in 30 countries and regions, including the US, with deliveries from November 6th. Apple’s Philippine store lists these starting prices, followed by the US price:
- 14-inch, M5 Pro: Php 214,990 (about $3,360); $2,899 (about Php 185,500)
- 16-inch, M5 Pro: Php 249,990 (about $3,910); $3,399 (about Php 217,500)
- 14-inch, M5 Max: Php 329,990 (about $5,160); $4,499 (about Php 287,900)
- 16-inch, M5 Max: Php 344,990 (about $5,390); $4,799 (about Php 307,100)
If you’ve been poking your MacBook’s screen out of iPad habit, well, now doing that will finally do something.
