It’s time to try one…
Right, that’s enough about specs and pricing — it’s time for TechRadar’s Editor at Large Lance Ulanoff to get his hands on the MacBook Pro PROLED XDR and see if it lives up the hype of being the “world’s best pro laptop”, as Apple calls it.
MacBook Pro PROLED: pricing
Let’s take a closer look at the slightly less exciting part of Apple’s new flagship MacBook Pro — its price.
The 14-inch versions starts at $2,899 / £2,899 / AU$4,599, while the base 16-inch versions comes in at $3,399 / £3,399 / $5,499. You can pre-order today, with deliveries starting on November 6.
Naturally, moving up to an M5 Max chip or boosting memory and storage will quickly ramp up that price tag. A fully maxed-out 16-inch version with all the bells and whistles? That will set you back a hilarious $14,549 / £14,549 / AU$22,424.
Still, your sweet spot will likely be somewhere in the memory and storage options below – starting with those for the 14-inch model…
And these are the memory and storage options for the 16-inch version…
The launch as it happened
There was no livestream for today’s touchscreen MacBook Pro event, but want to see the reveal as it happened? Here’s how Apple CEO John Ternus introduced it in LA…
Here’s Apple’s first video promo for the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display — tagline ‘the first-ever Mac with Touch’.
Apple sells the laptop as being a “totally portable reference monitor”, with up to 2,000-nits peak brightness and a 24-hour battery life for your “all-nighter”. No, not that kind of all-nighter, the work-based ones…
About that touchscreen
Apple has revealed a little more about the OLED MacBook Pro’s touchscreen. It supports all the usual Multi-Touch gestures (scroll, pinch, rotate, draw and more).
Why? Apple says you can use it to manipulate 3D objects or play virtual instruments. There are also classic use cases like pinching-to-zoom on photos, docs or web pages, or sketching and annotating on the screen.
Apparently the touchscreen is on this very high-end MacBook so that designers can interact with 3D prototypes, or developers can test how touch feels in their iOS apps. All very nice, but these don’t sound like revolutionary use cases for touch on a laptop — perhaps our hands-on demos will make us think otherwise…
MacBook Pro with ‘PROLED XDR Display’: specs
(Image credit: Future)
The Wi-Fi at Apple’s event is wobbling, but the new flagship MacBook Pro (with the dubiously-named PROLED XDR display) is already live on Apple’s website.
It’s available in 14-inch and 16-inch variants, with M5 Pro (16-core GPU or 20-core GPU) or M5 Max (32-core GPU or 40-core GPU) chips. Base storage starts at 1TB (going up to 16TB on the M5 Max versions), while base RAM is 24GB (going up to 128GB on the top model).
You can pre-order it now with availability starting on November 6. As rumored pricing starts at $2,899 for the 14-inch version and $3,399 for the 16-inch model…
The touchscreen MacBook Pro is official
The ‘All New MacBook Pro’ (as it appears to be called) is officially here.
We don’t have all the specs yet, but it has a tandem OLED display and weighs 3lbs…
(Image credit: Future)
John Ternus has hit the stage — and the touchscreen MacBook Pro is official!
Unusually, there’s no live stream for this Apple event — but fortunately, we’re inside the building in LA to bring you all the news as it happens.
We’ve been promised multiple floors of experiences — exactly how many floors you need to experience a touchscreen MacBook Pro remains to be seen…
5 minutes to go…
It seems those rumors about a 10am PDT / 1pm ET / 5pm GMT announcement were correct, judging by the number of people inside Apple’s event.
We’ve been told that the whole experience, not just the products, should be special. It won’t be long till we find out if that’s classic Apple hype or hyperbole…
How will Apple explain this?
Apple loves to jokingly talk up its “crack marketing team,” but they’ll have their work cut out trying to frame this one, given company co-founder and patron saint Steve Jobs’ long-standing opposition to touchscreen laptops.
Sure, Apple could tell us about all the innovative software features it’s built into macOS or how the touchscreen will increase your productivity (in conjunction with Siri AI, most likely). But the fundamentals remain that same as they did years ago: this is going to involve some degree of holding your arm horizontally in a way that Jobs would said will make it want to fall off.
How is Apple going to address that elephant in the room? I’ve got no idea, but it’s going to be fascinating to see how they spin it…
15 minutes to go
We’ve found one of the few seats available in Apple’s very dark space. Unfortunately it’s behind a lot of less fortunate standing people.
Earlier, our Editor at Large Lance Ulanoff managed to get this very angelic shot under the Apple logo. Not long to go now, folks…
Why no M6 Pro and M6 Max chips?
The MacBook Pro released yesterday has Apple’s M6 chip, but today’s touchscreen MacBook Pro is expected to get the M5 Pro and M5 Max, not the M6 Pro and M6 Max. What gives?
According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on AI upgrades in the M7 generation that it deems so important that it has decided to skip the M6 Pro and M6 Max (and M6 Ultra) and jump right ahead to the M7 Pro and M7 Max in late 2027.
That suggests the company ditched the high-end M6 chips and moved development resources over to the M7 equivalents, but presumably also decided it was worth launching the entry-level M6 anyway.
Confusing, we know. But here’s one way to look at it: like pretty much everything these days, AI is the likely reason.
We’re in!
(Image credit: Future)
We’re inside Apple’s event, and it’s not quite on the scale of the company’s bigger keynotes.
For one, there’s basically no seats, which suggests this announcement could be more about the hands-on experiences than a long presentation.
The rumors suggest that a 10am PDT / 1pm ET / 5pm GMT announcement is possible, so we might be just 40 minutes away from the official news…
Can Apple convince the skeptics?
We’ve asked for your opinion on the concept of a touchscreen MacBook Pro in our poll below. But what do TechRadar’s resident experts think of the idea?
I asked Alex Blake, an Apple veteran and TechRadar contributor, for his thoughts on what we might be seeing today.
“I’ve long been a touchscreen laptop doubter and agree with Steve Jobs’ pronouncement that they make your arm want to fall off. So I’m going to take some convincing that Apple’s latest effort is worth the outlay, especially when they’re rumored to cost an eye-watering $2,899 and up,” he said.
“I’m also wondering why Apple is making this move now. The MacBook Pro is already the best laptop in the world without a touchscreen, so Apple must feel like it’s got something really special — as it often does — with this latest product,” he added.
“Perhaps if Apple had decided to make a 2-in-1 instead of a fixed laptop, I might be more tempted. But that’s apparently not what we’re getting — and if we were, the price would be even sillier than it’s already expected to be,” he said.
It’s time for a vote!
Okay, we’ve filled you in on the rumors, so now it’s time to get a temperature check on your thoughts — are you interested in buying a touchscreen MacBook Pro? Let us know in the poll below…
The Dynamic Island could be a dark horse
I’m a fan of the Dynamic Island on my iPhone 16 Pro, and despite its awkward name, it feels like a genuinely useful addition to my phone. It’s a rumored addition to the new OLED MacBook Pro, and I’m intrigued to see how it plays out on a Mac.
Over the years, many developers have built their own versions of the Dynamic Island for macOS, and most of them have added handy functionality in one way or another. Now it’s Apple’s turn to show us its own take on the concept.
But really, all the Dynamic Island needs to be is an upgrade over the useless notch, which won’t be difficult. That alone could be enough to convince Mac fans of its utility, even if it doesn’t blow anyone away.
Apple has gone full Hollywood
TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff is in LA for Apple’s event today and is feeding me his first photos and thoughts.
As you can see, Apple’s event is very much in the heart of Hollywood. The event’s building has a lot of history too — CBS Columbia Square was built in 1938 and served as the home of CBS radio and television until 2007.
Passes are being handed out, we’re just waiting to head inside…
OLED MacBook Pro: a pricing headache?
The MacBook Pro M6 is already expensive, starting at $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,199. So how much can we expect to pay for a touchscreen OLED model with an M5 Pro or M5 Max chip?
The latest speculation from Bloomberg suggests the 14-inch version (with M5 Pro) could cost $2,899, which would be the highest-ever starting price for a new MacBook model. The 16-inch version, meanwhile, is tipped to cost at least $3,399.
Of course, those are just starting prices, with extra like RAM upgrades taking the prices further skywards — Apple currently charges an extra $600 / £600 to double RAM from 24GB to 48GB, for example. In other words, we should expect this to be the premium iPhone Duo of the MacBook world…
OLED MacBook Pro: what can we expect?
Perhaps thanks to the legacy of Steve Jobs’ famous hatred of them, Apple’s never done a touchscreen laptop before. With a new one set to launch today, what should we be looking out for?
Obviously, there’s touchscreen functionality, and Apple is rumored to have built an updated version of macOS to accommodate touch gestures. We’re also expecting an OLED panel — likely dubbed Super Retina XDR by Apple — with a built-in Dynamic Island and thinner bezels.
There will likely be both 14-inch and 16-inch models and options for M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. Whichever size you buy, the chassis could also come in slightly thinner than existing MacBook Pro devices.
All very impressive, but this is also likely to come at a serious cost…
What’s Apple announced so far?
The touchscreen MacBook Pro won’t be the first device Apple has set loose on the world this week. Yesterday we saw the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro get a new version with the M6 chip that Apple says “delivers up to 30 percent faster graphics and up to 25 percent faster AI workloads” versus the M5. There’s also a new N1 wireless chip that enables Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.
The iMac also got a spec bump with the same M6 and N1 upgrades as the MacBook Pro, and it can also support two external 4K displays at 165Hz instead of 144Hz.
Finally, Apple added AI features to its Creator Studio subscription, including Generate Fill in Pixelmator Pro and the addition of OpenAI models alongside existing Apple Intelligence options. Notably, Final Cut Pro got MotionVFX templates, graphics, transitions and more.
An impressive list, but Apple’s biggest news is still likely to come…
A ‘Ternus teaser’
Apple CEO John Ternus posted this Batman-style teaser two hours ago — and it doesn’t reveal a whole lot.
The biggest social media theory is that it points to the return of the glowing Apple logo, which we haven’t seen on a MacBook Pro for over a decade.
That glowing logo was more of a translucent cut-out rather than a separate LED, but it appears that Apple’s found a way to bring it back without compromising its flagship MacBook’s structural integrity.
It’d certainly give this probably-very-expensive laptop an extra bit of stardust over the rest of the lineup…
Welcome to our ‘Pro and Tell’ liveblog
Hello, Mark Wilson here (TechRadar’s Managing editor of News, UK) and I’ll be counting us down to Apple’s big news today — which is expected to be an OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro.
I’ve been a MacBook user for 20 years (yes, I’d paid extra for the matte black MacBook in 2007), so I have lots of thoughts on these surprising rumors. I’ll also be bringing you the latest from our Editor at Large, Lance Ulanoff, who’s in LA right now for Apple’s event.
Bur first, let’s it’s time for a recap of what’s happened so far and a closer look at those rumors, to help warm us up…
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mark.wilson@futurenet.com (Mark Wilson)
