Apple’s MacBook Pro has been redesigned for the first time in five years, getting slightly slimmer, significantly lighter and adding a fantastic new OLED display with the first touchscreen on a Mac. The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display comes in two sizes, 14in and 16in, but rather than replacing the standard MacBook Pro they sit alongside them as an even more expensive option. The OLED machines start at £2,899 (€3,299/$2,899/A$4,599) – a £400 or equivalent upgrade on the matching spec LCD models – serious prices for serious work machines, not helped by significant cost increases driven by RAMageddon.
Shut, the new OLED MacBook Pro looks almost identical to its predecessors: a little smaller in every direction but with the same aluminium body, combination of ports and overall profile. But pick it up and the weight loss is immediately noticeable. The 14in version is 14% lighter than its predecessor at 1.38kg, which makes it only 150g heavier than the 13in MacBook Air, and the 16in version is 15% lighter at 1.82kg.
The new touchscreen is the biggest change, complete with the dynamic island around the web cam like a modern iPhone. The screen on the LCD MacBook Pro was already fantastic, but the switch to OLED has several benefits. The screen is even brighter, hitting an incredible peak of 2,000 nits for outdoor or HDR content viewing, making it one of the brightest laptop screens available.
OLED displays have individually lit pixels, which gives them dramatically better contrast with the deepest blacks and eliminates any blooming effects. That makes the new screen one of the very best on any product and a genuine joy to use to create or watch content. It is super crisp, vibrant and smooth, and makes the most of dark mode. 14in screen: 14.2in tandem OLED (3024x1986; 254 ppi) ProMotion (10-120Hz) 16in screen: 16.3in tandem OLED (3472x2266; 254 ppi) ProMotion (10-120Hz) Connectivity: wifi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread, 3x Thunderbolt 5/USB 4, HDMI 2.1, SDXC card, headphones The OLED MacBook Pro isn’t the first laptop with a touchscreen – they’ve been common on Windows laptops since 2012 – but it is the first Mac with one.
For the most part the touchscreen mirrors mouse clicks, so you can single tap on just about anything or tap and hold for right click on most things. It also supports most of the gestures available on a trackpad, including swipes, pinch to zoom and rotate. Three-finger swipes trigger mission control so you can switch between windows, while flicking them left or right snaps them to the screen’s edge – though unsnapping them requires a mouse for some reason.
Swipe in from the right side of the screen for notification centre, down from the top right for control centre and from the dynamic island for Spotlight or Siri. The Mac is not touch-first like an iPad and there is no touchscreen keyboard. But Apple has built new touch systems that third-party app developers can use to do unique things, such as tools that fan out around your finger or scrubbing dials.
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