I just went hands on with the touchscreen MacBook Pro OLED — and it's jaw-dropping
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Mark Spoonauer is the global editor in chief of Tom's Guide and has covered technology for over 20 years. He oversees the direction of Tom's Guide and leads a team of over 25 journalists to bring you our expert buying guides, reviews, news, how-to articles, deals and other coverage. Mark has a passion for covering all things mobile, having reviewed dozens of smartphones and other gadgets. He enjoys testing the top mobile devices and putting them up against each other in our in-depth face-offs. He also works hand in hand with our editors and testing team to continually improve how we evaluate products. Having led Tom's Guide since 2013, Mark has focused on growing the core tech coverage of the site while also expanding into new areas, such as entertainment, fitness and home, recruiting talented writers and editors to help our readers figure out what to buy and how to get the most out of the products and services they use every day. Mark has spoken at key industry events and appears regularly on TV to discuss the latest trends, including Cheddar , Fox 5, Fox Business and other outlets. Mark was previously editor in chief of Laptop Mag, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc. Follow him on Twitter at @mspoonauer.
I'll be honest. I'm not a fan of the name. "MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display" is a mouthful. But this laptop, starting at $2,899, definitely made my jaw drop.
The first thing I noticed was the colorful tandem OLED panel. At 2,000 nits, this screen is so bright we had to turn down our camera to record it. The colors really pop off the display. The screen offers a 120Hz refresh rate and a 10 million to 1 contrast ratio, which Apple says is industry leading — and I believe it.
The second thing that hit me is that the notch is gone, replaced by a smaller Dynamic Island. When playing music, for example, the music player will shrink in a little window at the top of the display, and you bring it back with a tap.
And that brings me to perhaps the biggest upgrade overall, as it's a first for MacBooks: touch.
I found the touchscreen support to be pretty smooth as I navigated between apps. I could draw using my finger with ease, though there's no Apple Pencil support to speak of.
As you would expect, pinch-to-zoom works well, and I could easily drag and drop video clips in a timeline. I also played a virtual keyboard (complete with chords) and interacted with a 3D model by spinning it around.
We'll have to see how well touch works with third-party apps, but Apple already promises support for Notion, Canva, Zoom, Microsoft Office, Adobe Lightroom and more.
All of this is wrapped up in a design that's only 3 pounds, which is less than the MacBook Pro with M6 at 3.4 pounds. I could easily see myself carrying this as my everyday laptop — if I had the budget.
Another design highlight is that Apple has brought back the glowing Apple logo, so everyone will know from across the room that you have the touchscreen Mac.
Powering the MacBook Pro with PROLED is the M5 Pro and M5 Max chip, which should offer swift performance for creative pros and coders.
And this new MacBook Pro will hopefully sound as good as it looks, thanks to a new woofer design with 50% more bass.
The port selection is robust, with three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI, SDXC card, MagSafe and a headphone jack. And you get both Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support.
Starting at $2,899 for the 14-inch version and $3,399 for the 16-inch, this is one pricey laptop. But if you want the very best display quality it could be worth the premium. Anyone who works with photos and video on a daily basis I think will love this panel.
I would say the touch interface is more of a bonus, and I'd like to see Apple offer it across the lineup just to give people more options.