When Apple announced its new OLED MacBook Pro at its “Pro and tell” event last week, I was cautiously optimistic. I’ve been waiting what feels like ages for Apple to finally bring an OLED display to the MacBook, but at $2,900, it’s a steep price tag, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about its touchscreen.

Like many others, I couldn’t help but think back to what Steve Jobs famously said when dismissing the idea of a touchscreen MacBook back in 2010. At the time, he called it “ergonomically terrible” and argued that “touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical.”

Fast-forward 16 years, and a lot has changed at Apple. With new CEO John Ternus at the helm, we now have the company’s first touchscreen MacBook Pro, officially named the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display. After spending the past couple of days putting Apple’s new OLED MacBook Pro through its paces, I have to say, I’m already incredibly impressed. Here are my initial thoughts on its display, touch capabilities, design, and performance.

Operating System

macOS 27

CPU

M5 Pro / M5 Max

RAM

24GB / 48GB / 64GB / 128GB

Storage

1TB / 2TB / 4TB / 8TB / 16TB

OLED takes the MacBook Pro to another level

The display is easily the star of the show

I’ve tested plenty of Windows laptops with OLED displays over the years, including, more recently, the Asus ProArt 14, but Apple’s new OLED MacBook Pro has blown them all away. This is, without a doubt, the best laptop display I’ve ever used.

The colors are vivid and eye-popping, the blacks are deep, the contrast is excellent, and it can also reach a peak brightness of 2,000 nits for both SDR and HDR content. Compared side by side with my older M1 Pro MacBook Pro, the difference is night and day. For photo editing and video, the display has been nothing short of amazing.

For reference, I’m testing the 16-inch model, which features a 16.3-inch tandem OLED display with a resolution of 3,472 x 2,266 pixels. However, regardless of whether you opt for the 16-inch or 14-inch model, Apple’s new OLED MacBook Pro supports both the P3 and Adobe RGB color gamuts, allowing it to display 1 billion colors. It also boasts a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, along with Apple’s True Tone technology and ProMotion, which provides an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz.

Apple also offers an optional nano-texture glass finish that helps reduce reflections and glare from bright lights, but it’ll cost you an additional $150. I’m testing the standard glass option, which features an anti-reflective coating, and so far, I have no complaints about reflections.

I’m using the touchscreen more than I ever expected

Dynamic Island helps a lot

In the past, whenever I’ve tested Windows laptops with touchscreens, I’ve mostly forgotten the feature was even there. That’s because, instinctively, when I’m using a laptop, my mind always goes straight to navigating with the trackpad rather than reaching up and touching the screen. When I first started testing the OLED MacBook Pro, I figured the same thing would happen.

However, thanks to the OLED MacBook Pro’s new Dynamic Island, which Apple has brought over from the iPhone and replaces the traditional notch MacBook Pros have had since 2021, I’ve found a real reason to use the touchscreen. Whether it’s interacting with media controls in apps like Spotify or using Siri AI, I’ve found myself reaching for the screen more often than I expected.

I also have thousands of photos saved in iCloud, and browsing my albums, scrolling through pictures, and selecting the ones I want to edit has been much easier with a touchscreen. Additionally, using familiar pinch-to-zoom controls, as on the iPhone, makes editing photos feel much more natural.

iPhone Mirroring is another feature that benefits considerably from touch controls. Being able to interact with my iPhone more naturally right on the MacBook Pro is a much better experience, especially since I’ve always found using a mouse with iPhone Mirroring to be a bit janky.

Overall, the touchscreen is very responsive, and I haven’t run into any issues with apps failing to recognize my touches. There is a little bit of screen wobble when you touch the display, but the MacBook Pro’s new hinge does a good job of reducing it, even if it doesn’t eliminate it entirely. However, with the touchscreen costing $400 more than the regular M5 Pro MacBook Pro, I’m not yet convinced that the huge extra cost is worth it.

Design and performance

The glowing Apple logo is back

Aside from the changes Apple has made to the display, the company has kept the design of its new OLED MacBook Pro pretty similar to that of previous-generation models, retaining the same sleek unibody aluminum chassis.

However, there are two big changes that immediately stand out, and both are things I really appreciate. The first is that Apple has considerably reduced the weight of its new OLED MacBook Pro models. The 16-inch model I’m testing weighs just 4 pounds, making it 0.7 pounds lighter than its predecessor, while the 14-inch model comes in at just 3 pounds, half a pound lighter than before. I could immediately feel the difference as soon as I took it out of the box, and I think it’s going to make this laptop so much better to travel with and slip into my backpack.

The second big change is the return of the glowing Apple logo on the lid. I’m a sucker for nostalgia, and I’ve always loved the glowing Apple logo on older MacBook models, so I’m glad to see it making a comeback here. It looks super sleek, and I think it complements the Space Black finish really well.

Finally, I do want to touch on performance briefly. The OLED MacBook Pro is available with Apple’s M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, both of which are extremely powerful. The model I’m testing features the M5 Pro and 48GB of RAM, and in the Geekbench 7 CPU test I ran, it scored 3,665 in single-core performance and 33,237 in multi-core performance. I still want to put it through some more extensive testing, but I’m not overly concerned about performance, as the M5 Pro has already proven itself to be a beast of a chip in the regular MacBook Pro.

Closing thoughts

Overall, I’m really happy with Apple’s new OLED MacBook Pro so far. Its display is absolutely stunning, I’ve found myself using the touchscreen much more than I expected, and the design improvements, particularly the reduced weight and the return of the glowing Apple logo, are fantastic.

I’ll have plenty more to say about the other aspects of this laptop in my full review, so stay tuned to Pocket-lint.