Apple has completely redesigned the high-end MacBook Pro, bringing Touch to the Mac for the first time alongside a new tandem OLED PROLED XDR display, Dynamic Island, M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, a thinner and lighter chassis, and up to 24 hours of battery life.
Available in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes, the new MacBook Pro was announced on October 28 and represents a much bigger change than the separate 14-inch M6 model Apple introduced a day earlier. The Apple Post covered the full announcement here.
Here is everything you need to know about Apple’s new MacBook Pro with Touch and PROLED XDR, including the display, touchscreen controls, Dynamic Island, chips, battery life, ports, memory, storage, pricing, and release date.
The headline change is Touch. Apple has integrated the touch sensor directly into the PROLED XDR display panel rather than layering it over the top, a design the company says reduces latency and makes interactions feel more immediate.
Users can swipe through webpages, pinch to zoom, drag and drop content, tap controls, double-tap windows to fill the screen, and flick windows into tiled positions. Apple is positioning Touch as an additional input method alongside the keyboard and trackpad rather than a replacement for either.
The feature also opens up more specialized workflows. Designers can draw directly on the display, musicians can play software instruments onscreen, and developers can test touch interactions in iPhone and iPad apps directly on the Mac. Apple has redesigned the hinge to improve stability while the display is being touched. Our dedicated Touch explainer covers how the system works.
The new MacBook Pro replaces the previous Liquid Retina XDR panel with Apple’s new PROLED XDR display, built around tandem OLED technology using two self-illuminating pixel layers.
Apple says the display can reach up to 2,000 nits of peak HDR and SDR brightness and delivers a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, with deep blacks and bright highlights without the blooming associated with conventional backlit displays.
ProMotion supports adaptive refresh rates from 10Hz to 120Hz, while color support now includes both P3 and Adobe RGB with more than 80 percent coverage of Rec. 2020. A nano-texture finish remains available for reducing glare in bright environments. The Apple Post has a detailed look at PROLED XDR here.
Apple has also brought Dynamic Island to the Mac for the first time. It sits at the top of the display and becomes a home for Spotlight, Live Activities, Siri AI, calls, AirDrop requests, and media controls.
The interface is designed to work particularly naturally with Touch, allowing users to tap Live Activities and controls directly rather than relying solely on the pointer. Here is how Dynamic Island works on the new MacBook Pro.
The redesign makes both sizes noticeably easier to carry. The 14-inch MacBook Pro now weighs 3 pounds, half a pound less than before, while the 16-inch model weighs 4 pounds, a reduction of 0.7 pounds.
The 14-inch model is around half a millimeter thinner, while the 16-inch model is nearly a millimeter thinner. Apple says the more efficient OLED display stack helped make the slimmer design possible.
Display borders are also narrower. The smaller model uses a 14.2-inch panel, while the larger MacBook Pro now has a 16.3-inch display. Apple has redesigned the thermal architecture to sustain M5 Pro and M5 Max performance while directing warm air away from the display. We have a closer look at the new chassis and weight reductions here.
The new MacBook Pro is available with M5 Pro or M5 Max, which Apple describes as its most powerful chips yet for a pro notebook.
Both chips include Neural Accelerators in the GPU for accelerating on-device AI workloads, alongside enhanced shader cores, third-generation ray tracing, and Dynamic Caching for graphics-intensive work.
M5 Pro is aimed at demanding development, engineering, scientific, and creative workflows, while M5 Max is designed for heavier workloads including 3D visual effects, large AI models, film scoring, and 8K video production. Apple says M5 Max can run large language models with hundreds of billions of parameters entirely on device. Our M5 Pro and M5 Max story goes deeper into the performance and AI focus.
Apple has significantly expanded the upper limits of the MacBook Pro. Configurations can now reach up to 128GB of unified memory and as much as 16TB of SSD storage.
Those options are aimed squarely at users handling very large local AI models, high-resolution media libraries, complex 3D scenes, and other workflows that can exceed the limits of mainstream notebook configurations.
Despite the brighter display and thinner chassis, Apple rates the new MacBook Pro for up to 24 hours of battery life.
Fast charging can take the battery to around 50 percent in 30 minutes with a compatible power adapter. The Apple Post has more on battery life and charging here.
The new MacBook Pro includes three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI, an SDXC card slot, MagSafe, and a headphone jack.
M5 Pro models can support up to three external displays, while M5 Max increases that to as many as four. Apple’s N1 wireless chip also adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Here is the full connectivity and external-display breakdown.
Apple has redesigned the six-speaker sound system with new woofers that it says deliver 50 percent deeper bass, alongside updated tweeters for improved clarity.
For the first time, dedicated tuning is also used when the MacBook Pro is closed and connected to an external display, allowing the built-in speakers to maintain a more balanced sound in clamshell setups. We have more on the audio changes here.
Many existing Mac apps work with Touch immediately because macOS can translate touches into clicks, while developers can use new gesture APIs to create more tailored interactions.
Apple has highlighted support from apps including Notion, Canva, Zoom, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Adobe Lightroom, DaVinci Resolve, Blender, Cinema 4D, ZBrush, Shapr3D, and djay Pro. Apple’s own Creator Studio apps are also being optimized around direct touch input. See the growing list of Touch-supported apps here.
The new MacBook Pro ships with macOS 27 Golden Gate, which includes system-level support for Touch, Dynamic Island, Apple Intelligence, and Siri AI.
Siri AI can use personal context, understand onscreen content, answer wider questions, and perform actions across apps in supported languages and regions. Dynamic Island gives Siri AI and Live Activities a persistent place at the top of the display.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at $2,899 in the United States and £2,899 in the United Kingdom. The 16-inch M5 Pro model starts at $3,399 in the US and £3,399 in the UK.
With M5 Max, the 14-inch model starts at $4,499 in the US and £4,499 in the UK, while the 16-inch version starts at $4,799 and £4,799 respectively. Our pricing story breaks down the full lineup and education discounts.
Preorders opened on October 28, with the new models arriving to customers, Apple Stores, and Apple Authorized Resellers from Friday, November 6.
The redesigned models are aimed at buyers who need more than the base M6 MacBook Pro offers, particularly users who want Touch, tandem OLED, Dynamic Island, Thunderbolt 5, higher memory and storage ceilings, or M5 Pro and M5 Max performance.
The much higher starting price means the new design is not simply a replacement for every 14-inch MacBook Pro buyer. Apple’s separate 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 remains the lower-cost option for users who want strong performance and long battery life without the new Touch and PROLED XDR hardware.