Apple Finally Put Touch on a MacBook, but the Price May Be the Bigger Shock
Apple Finally Put Touch on a MacBook, but the Price May Be the Bigger Shock
For years, Apple treated the touchscreen laptop as a bad idea. Steve Jobs called the concept “ergonomically terrible,” and the company held that line through more than a decade of MacBook revisions. That resistance ended at Apple’s Wednesday “Pro and tell” event, when it unveiled its first touchscreen MacBook Pro.
Wednesday’s launch: The redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch machines add Apple’s tandem-OLED “PROLED XDR” panel, with up to 2,000 nits of peak SDR brightness, a 120Hz refresh rate and a claimed 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio. They retain M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, add a Dynamic Island cutout and revive the glowing Apple logo. Preorders opened immediately, with shipments due November 6; pricing starts at $2,899 for the 14-inch and $3,399 for the 16-inch.
First hands-ons: Reviewers broadly agreed that the hardware refinement is real. The 14-inch model weighs 3 pounds and the 16-inch 4 pounds, while the OLED screen delivered “remarkable” saturation and contrast in an early test. Another hands-on called its peak brightness, absolute blacks and dynamic range “genuinely remarkable,” arguing that the display—not touch—is the main upgrade.
The touchscreen itself has drawn the more qualified response. Apple is pitching finger-driven scrolling, pinch-to-zoom, file dragging, iOS and iPadOS app testing, and software instruments. Yet the laptop remains a conventional clamshell, without tablet conversion or Apple Pencil support. One reviewer’s verdict was blunt: after years of anticipation, “it’s just a touchscreen.”
The price test: That sense of restraint may matter most at checkout. A configured 16-inch M5 Max model with 64GB of memory and 2TB of storage reaches $5,799, with further memory upgrades adding sharply to the bill. On X, Elon Musk amplified a comparison claiming a fully loaded 16-inch OLED MacBook Pro costs $14,549—more than a used 2020 Tesla Model 3 listed at $14,190.
Apple has finally answered the touchscreen question. Early reaction suggests it has not yet settled the value question.
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