Apple's first touchscreen MacBook Pro brings tandem OLED and Dynamic Island on November 6

Apple's first touchscreen MacBook Pro goes on sale

Apple has announced the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display, the first Mac laptop with a touchscreen. Shown off at the company's "Pro and Tell" event on Wednesday, the machine pairs a tandem OLED panel with full touch input, new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips and a lighter enclosure. According to The Verge, preorders are open now, with shipments starting November 6 at $2,899 for the 14-inch model and $3,399 for the 16-inch.

Touch comes to a tandem OLED display

The screen is the headline feature. Apple says PROLED XDR combines tandem OLED technology with processing in the display engine to reach up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness for both HDR and SDR content, 1,000 nits of sustained full-screen brightness, a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, P3 and Adobe RGB color coverage, and a ProMotion refresh rate that adapts between 10Hz and 120Hz. The company positions it as a reference-grade panel suitable for filmmaking, design and even medical imaging.

Rather than layering a touch sensor on top of the panel, Apple has built it directly into the display, which the company says reduces latency so it feels like touching the content itself. Supported gestures include scrolling, pinch-to-zoom and on-screen sketching, plus newer interactions such as manipulating 3D objects and playing virtual instruments.

The Verge reports that the webcam now sits in a hole-punch cutout instead of the familiar notch, and that the top of the screen hosts a Dynamic Island, the pill-shaped interface borrowed from the iPhone, acting as a hub for Spotlight searches, Live Activities and Siri AI. Apple notes that Siri AI currently works in English and that usage limits may apply.

M5 Pro and M5 Max inside a lighter chassis

Both touch models run Apple's newest pro laptop silicon. Apple claims the M5 Pro is up to 10.9 times faster than the M1 Pro, and the M5 Max up to 12 times faster than the M1 Max, with a Neural Accelerator built into every GPU core for on-device AI workloads. Storage is said to be up to twice as fast as before and configurable to 16TB, supported by a redesigned thermal architecture.

Battery life is rated at up to 24 hours, which Apple says is up to 13 hours more than Intel-based MacBook Pros offered, with fast charging to 50 percent in half an hour. The Verge notes the laptop weighs as little as 3 pounds, has thinner bezels and enhanced audio, and revives the glowing Apple logo on the lid, a detail CEO John Ternus teased in a video on X.

Pricing and availability

According to The Verge, the 14-inch touch model starts at $2,899 with an M5 Pro, 24GB of memory and 1TB of storage, while a $4,499 configuration steps up to an M5 Max with 36GB of memory and 2TB of storage. The 16-inch starts at $3,399. Both sizes come in space black and silver, with a $150 nano-texture glass option, and the touch model is initially up for preorder only from Apple.

The rest of the lineup

The event also brought an updated 14-inch MacBook Pro without the touch display, offered with an M6 chip at $1,999, an M5 Pro at $2,499 or an M5 Max at $4,099. The Verge describes it as a small, iterative update centered on performance gains and improved wireless connectivity. Apple likewise announced an M6 iMac starting at $1,499 and a redesigned iPad Mini with a larger OLED display, smaller bezels, water resistance and a slimmer, lighter body.

Why it matters

Apple spent more than a decade insisting touch did not belong on laptops, even as Windows machines made it mainstream. The first touchscreen Mac, complete with a Dynamic Island and a hole-punch camera, amounts to the biggest MacBook redesign in years and pulls macOS closer to the interaction model of the iPhone and iPad. It is also a landmark for new leadership: The Verge notes the touchscreen MacBook and the new iPhone Duo are among the first major products launched under CEO John Ternus, who previously led Apple's hardware engineering.