Apple has added a touchscreen to the MacBook Pro for the first time, unveiling the new model on Oct. 28. It also features a tandem OLED display, a thinner and lighter design, and powerful processors. The starting price, though, is $2,899 — enough to make even an enthusiastic Mac user pause.
So what does that price get you, and is a touchscreen reason enough to upgrade? The answer may depend less on the novelty of tapping your screen and more on the new display and the kind of work you do.
Apple long argued that a Mac worked best with a keyboard and trackpad, even as touchscreen Windows laptops became common. Its Touch Bar experiment added touch controls without making the display itself touch-sensitive. This time, Apple has made a more direct change: you can scroll, zoom into photos, move content between windows and use touch features in compatible creative apps.
The hinge has also been redesigned to keep the screen steadier when you tap it. That seems like a small detail, but a display that wobbles with every touch would get irritating quickly.
It is still a conventional laptop, however. The screen does not fold back into tablet mode, and the MacBook Pro does not support Apple Pencil. The keyboard and trackpad remain central to how you use it, so this is not a combined MacBook-and-iPad device.
The display may turn out to be a bigger everyday improvement than touch. Apple calls it the PROLED XDR Display, and says it uses tandem OLED technology. Rather than relying on a backlight, OLED pixels produce their own light, allowing for deep blacks and bright highlights with less of the glow associated with conventional backlit screens.
Apple claims peak brightness of up to 2,000 nits for HDR and SDR content, a contrast ratio of 10,000,000:1 and refresh rates of up to 120Hz. In practical terms, photos may look more vivid, dark scenes in movies may show more detail, and accurate color could be useful for people editing images or video.
An antireflective coating is included, with an optional nano-texture finish for reducing reflections further. For people who spend long hours in bright rooms working on visual projects, those display changes could matter more than the touchscreen.
The laptop comes with an M5 Pro or M5 Max processor, aimed at people handling demanding workloads such as high-resolution video editing and large photo libraries. Configurations are available with up to 128GB of unified memory and 16TB of storage, although choosing those upgrades can push the price well beyond the starting point.
The new model runs macOS 27, with Apple Intelligence and an upgraded Siri. It also brings Dynamic Island to the Mac, displaying live updates and controls near the top of the screen. Other features include a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, a six-speaker sound system, Thunderbolt 5 ports and an HDMI port for connecting external displays.
Despite the added technology, Apple says the new laptops are lighter than their predecessors. The 14-inch model weighs about three pounds, roughly half a pound less, while the 16-inch version weighs four pounds, about 0.7 pounds less. Both have slimmer designs, which should make them a little easier to carry.
Apple advertises up to 24 hours of battery life, depending on the configuration and how the computer is used. That is a striking claim for a powerful laptop with a bright display, but independent testing will be needed to see how it performs during ordinary work.
The 14-inch touchscreen model with an M5 Pro starts at $2,899. The 16-inch version starts at $3,399. Models with an M5 Max begin at $4,499 for the 14-inch laptop and $4,799 for the 16-inch one. Those are base prices, and extra memory or storage can add substantially to the total.
Apple also introduced a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M6 chip on Oct. 27. It starts at $1,999 and has a Liquid Retina XDR display without touch support. That is a $900 gap between the entry-level M6 model and the least expensive touchscreen version, though the latter also includes an M5 Pro processor and the new OLED display. The difference is not simply the cost of adding touch.
For comparison, the previous 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro started at $2,499, making the new touchscreen model $400 more expensive than its predecessor. Buyers who do not need a touch display can still choose a less expensive MacBook Pro. The new model adds another high-end option to an already costly lineup.
Apple says many existing Mac apps should respond to touch without special updates, because macOS can interpret a finger tap as a mouse click. The company is also highlighting more specific uses in creative software. In Final Cut Pro, editors can manipulate clips on the display, while Logic Pro users can play virtual instruments by touch.
Adobe Lightroom and Microsoft Office apps are among the third-party software expected to use the new capabilities. Whether touch makes those apps easier to use will depend on how developers adapt them. Small buttons and crowded menus can be awkward to operate with a finger, even on a responsive screen.
Early hands-on impressions suggest that common gestures work smoothly, though some of macOS’s smaller controls may be difficult to tap. Those are initial observations, not the result of extended testing. It remains to be seen how quickly apps are updated — and how often owners actually use the touchscreen once it stops feeling new.
If you already have a recent MacBook Pro that handles your work well, the touchscreen alone may not be a compelling reason to replace it. A trackpad or mouse can still offer precise control, especially for detailed tasks.
For video editors and photographers, the OLED display could be a more convincing reason to consider an upgrade. The lighter design may also appeal to people who regularly travel with a demanding workload. For email, browsing and everyday tasks, a less expensive MacBook Air or standard MacBook Pro will likely be sufficient.
Anyone considering the new model may want to try it in person when it becomes available on Nov. 6. Using the touchscreen alongside the keyboard and trackpad could make it easier to judge whether the feature fits naturally into your work.
Apple deserves some credit for bringing touch to the MacBook Pro at last. It is a feature many people have grown used to on phones and tablets, and the new OLED screen sounds promising, particularly for visual work. Still, $2,899 is a steep price, and the M6 MacBook Pro starts $900 lower. I would want to see how useful touch feels in day-to-day use before treating it as an essential upgrade.
