Apple unveils MacBook Pro with OLED touchscreen, from $2,899

Apple has announced a redesigned MacBook Pro with an OLED display and, for the first time on a Mac, a touchscreen. It is the first major overhaul of the line in more than five years. Preorders open today, and the laptops reach customers on November 6.

Apple's demo video showed users touching the screen to drag files and to pinch to zoom. The footage stayed in a standard laptop posture, so this does not appear to be a 2-in-1 convertible. Touch on macOS is a notable reversal: Steve Jobs was famously opposed to the idea.

A brighter display, a lighter body

Apple calls the OLED panel PROLED XDR. It reaches 2,000 nits of peak brightness and has a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and it keeps the 120 Hz variable refresh rate of earlier models. Apple referred to burn-in protection but has not said how it works.

The 14-inch model weighs 3 pounds, roughly half a pound less than its predecessor, depending on configuration. The camera notch is gone, replaced by a small black cutout that Apple calls the Dynamic Island. It presumably behaves like the iPhone version and shows live activities. The Apple logo on the lid now glows, as it did on older MacBooks.

Same chips, higher prices

The laptops use the M5 Pro and M5 Max, the same chips as the previous refresh. Apple is skipping the M6 series, which has already reached other Macs. Earlier reports said it would wait for the M7 generation, which could bring larger gains in AI performance. Memory tops out at 128GB with the M5 Max, while storage now goes up to 16TB.

Price is the catch. The 14-inch M5 Pro starts at $2,899 and the 16-inch at $3,399. With the M5 Max, the 14-inch starts at $4,499 and the 16-inch at $4,799, before any memory or storage upgrades.