Apple has revealed its first touchscreen MacBook – the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display – and ahead of its launch, I have had some time to start testing the new flagship laptop.
This isn’t a full review – I have only been using this for a day and haven’t completed the usual Trusted Reviews suite of benchmarking tests to determine battery life and overall performance, so think of it more as a first impressions look.
And unlike a lot of MacBook updates, this is more than a simple spec bump. This is Apple’s first touchscreen laptop, something many thought would never arrive. It’s a big swing, and there’s a lot to get stuck into here.
So, has the PROLED XDR made the perfect first impression?
That OLED screen is glorious
The addition of touch isn’t the only display upgrade, and in fact it’s new tech that’s being used here that I am more ecstatic about. OLED displays aren’t new on laptops – they’re pretty common on Windows machines, even more affordable ones – but this is the first time there has been one on a Mac. And it’s fantastic.
The previous-gen MacBook Pro, and the current M6 version, use Mini LED backlight. They’re very good, and have many of the hallmarks of OLED – deep blacks, punchy colours, plenty of plenty of brightness for HDR content. This Tandem OLED panel, though, is just better.
First off, it better. It’s not night and day, but it is obvious if you have an OLED MacBook Pro next to an older Mini LED one. And if you’re coming from an LCD, you’re really in for a treat. Colours pop a bit more, and there’s far less blooming around bright spots on dark backgrounds due to OLED’s ability to dispense with a backlight.
Some of the specs on this screen are wild. It has a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 2000 nits of both peak HDR brightness (previous machines topped out at 1600 nits) and sustained SDR brightness, and support for both P3 and Adobe RGB colour spaces. It also has ProMotion and True Tone. If there’s a box, it’s been ticked.
OLED screens also allow for a slimmer machine, as all the pixels are self-illuminating and don’t require a backlight, and it can be more power efficient too.
It’ll take some time to get used to touching macOS
Apple had long been reticent to add touch to its MacBook line. Steve Jobs once blasted the tech completely, and Tim Cook also dismissed it during its tenure, so it’s somewhat of a surprise to see it finally arrive.
I think what I am more surprised about, and maybe relieved to see, is that macOS hasn’t really changed to adapt touch in seismic ways. Yes, some smaller elements grow slightly when you tap on them – the red, yellow and green options buttons at the top of pages, for example – and all the gestures that were previously restricted to the trackpad are now on the screen too, but that’s really it.
Apple has some nifty demos for how the touchscreen can be used. From piano keys in Logic to scrubbing through timelines in Final Cut, it feels like this is firmly positioned as a bonus rather than a singular reason to upgrade.
This could all change, especially if more models get touchscreens in the coming years. I’m sure Apple will push macOS into a more touch-friendly direction; it’s just not done much of that yet.
Some might dismiss this as lazy, but for me it makes sense. This is a big change, and ensuring users upgrading aren’t bombarded with new methods of input in the past. It also means that if you don’t want to touch the screen, you don’t really have to.
So far, I’ve used it mostly for swiping through websites or zooming in on photos. Basic stuff, yes. After just over a day with the PROLED XDR, my mind hasn’t quite computed that I can touch this screen. I think it’ll take a bit more time to rework my brain.
One final note – there is no Apple Pencil support. Hardly a surprise but still a shame. It would have been nice to sign documents and the like directly on the display.
What about fingerprints?
My previous MacBooks (obviously) haven’t had touchscreens, but all the displays still, somehow, manage to get absolutely covered in fingerprints in minutes. It’s annoying, and my worry with the touch display is that this is just going to be even more obvious.
Apple has done work to try and alleviate this by adding a new oleophobic coating to the screen to reduce smudges. And even though you can get the screen in both standard and nano-texture coatings, even the standard model I have here is more resistant to reflections than before. This, in turn, means smudges are just that little bit less visible.
There’s definitely more rigidity in the hinge
With the switch to touch, Apple has focused on making the laptop’s hinge more rigid so it doesn’t move about as much when touched. I’ve got both the MacBook Pro M6 and PROLED XDR, and there is definitely more tension in the PROLED display.
A good example of this is that during a Zoom meeting on the M6 model, I tapped the screen and the camera bobbed up and down. On the PROLED, the camera didn’t move at all.
This is an issue I have experienced on numerous touch-enabled laptops in the past.
The 14-inch model is lighter (and thinner), even if the 16-inch gets the bigger changes
Apple has slimmed down the MacBook Pro this time around. Likely due to the smaller size of OLED panels, both the 14-inch and 16-inch versions have trimmed some bulk.
It’s the 16-inch that gets the more noticeable change. The M5 Pro model now weighs 1.82kg as opposed to the 2.14kg the last-gen model tipped the scales at. That’ll make a big difference in your bag. It’s slightly slimmer, too.
I’ve got the M5 Max 14-inch here, plus the MacBook Pro M6 (also 14-inch), and holding and comparing the two side-by-side does reveal some differences. The PROLED models are lighter, with the M5 Pro weighing 1.38 kg and the M5 Max 1.40kg – compared to the 1.55kg M6. A few mm of height and depth have been shaved off, making a more portable machine on the whole.
A deeper redesign would have been nice – but I love the return of the glowing Apple logo
In many ways this feels like the next-gen MacBook Pro. In others though, it’s a more modest upgrade. Aside from the differences mentioned above, the overall design is much the same as the last few MacBook Pros. The two colours are even the same.
One difference is the return of the glowing Apple logo on the laptop’s lid. This lights up when the machine is on and changes as you alter the display’s brightness.
A lot is the same, including the chips
Apple isn’t launching the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR with new chips. There’s no M6 option, nor M6 Max or Pro variants. Instead, the same M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are here, with up to a 40-core GPU if you plump for the Max and 16-core neural engines on both.
RAM starts at 24GB (M5 Pro) or 36GB (M5 Max) and goes up to 64GB or 128GB, respectively. The M5 Max can also now take 16TB of SSD storage, double the 8TB available previously.
Ports remain the same – which is good, at least we haven’t lost the HDMI or SD card slot – as do the front 12MP camera and Touch ID biometric unlocking.
Battery life claims also look to be the same, although I haven’t had the machine for long enough to really test the endurance yet.
There’s still no Face ID
Apple has switched from a display notch to a Dynamic Island, bringing some of the features iPhone users will be familiar with. Siri, for example, lives inside the Dynamic Island, as does the brightness and volume slider, and music playback controls.
This works naturally with touch and is a little more conspicuous than the notch – even if I didn’t have an issue with that design aspect of the previous MacBook Pros. I’m sure eventually we will see Dynamic Islands across the whole range, possibly when the higher-end models inevitably switch to an under-display camera.
The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display starts at £2899/$2899 for the base M5 Pro model, rising to £4499/$4499 for the M5 Max option. That puts it in direct competition with some of the best laptops we’ve reviewed this year, like the £3899 Asus ProArt P16 (2026, RTX Spark) and the £3099 Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Ultra. The rising prices of RAM and storage have to be recognised as one of the biggest factors in why laptops are so expensive in 2026.
You’re paying a minimum £899/$899 premium over the MacBook Pro M6 (which starts at £1999/$1999), although you do get plenty for that extra cash: faster performance, a better display, touch and a thinner body.
I’ve only spent just over a day with the first touchscreen MacBook Pro, and I need more time to delve into all its intricacies. First impressions are strong, though – I can already tell I am going to struggle to give up this gorgeous display.