Apple MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display review: The screen that every Mac deserves

Apple's fans know all about waiting. The company tends to polish features, especially in hardware, that some other laptop vendors release faster. The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display ends the wait for two long-requested elements: OLED and touch, both on the platform for the very first time.

That comes at a price. The 16-inch version we have on review starts at $3,399 and is $7,899 as configured. 14-inch systems start at $2,899. Those are $400 bumps over the existing MacBook Pros with identical chips, making the OLED panel a pricey upgrade.

But those who can afford these high-end systems will get the best display on a Mac, if not laptops in general. Add in a significant reduction in weight and improved speakers, and you're getting a lot of small tweaks that add up over what was already one of the best laptops, even if many of the aesthetics haven't changed.

Design

From a distance, this new MacBook Pro doesn't look all that different from the existing models, which are still on the market, which may upset some people looking for a more sweeping redesign. They come in the same colors (space black, like our review unit, and silver) and they largely have the same design. Technically, the new OLED display stack allows for a thinner system, but our 16-inch review unit, at 16 mm thick, is just 0.8 mm shorter than an equivalent 16-inch MacBook Pro with Liquid Retina screen.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

The aesthetic differences show up once you open the laptop. For one, the notch in the display is gone with the PROLED XDR models, replaced with the Dynamic Island from the latest iPhones. Let us rejoice; while the notch never bothered me on phones, it always felt in the way, dipping into the macOS menu bar. This isn't perfect, but it feels far more natural and has added functionality (see "Dynamic Island and macOS Touch Features" below).

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Then there's the glowing Apple logo on the back of the lid. We haven't seen this for years, and while I could take or leave it, it's definitely going to make some fans nostalgic. The old glowing Mac logos used light from LCD backlights, getting the effect with no extra power. Because OLED panels only light up pixels when they're needed, Apple is making an aesthetic choice to power the logo with a bit of extra electricity this time. The glow matches the brightness of the display, which is a fun touch. I didn't see anything in settings to disable it.

Apple's bezels are thinner, which has let Apple stretch the display to 16.3 inches on this new 16-inch model (it's still 14.2 inches on the smaller one). The displays are now rounded on all four sides. On the Liquid Retina displays, they're rounded on top to match the curves in the chassis, but are squared on the bottom. It's not a huge change, but it does cut some pixels on the bottom of the screen and looks a bit like an iPad.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Otherwise, the system looks largely the same. You have the same ports: MagSafe 3, two Thunderbolt 5 ports, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack on the left; and an SD card reader, an additional Thunderbolt port, and HDMI output on the right.

But the OLED laptop feels different when you pick it up or put it in a backpack. Changes to cooling in the new 16-inch MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR and the switch to an OLED screen get the laptop down to 4.1 pounds with M5 Max (4.0 pounds with M5 Pro), whereas the Liquid Retina versions are 4.7 pounds. You can really feel the half-pound difference. (The 14-incher is down from 3.5 pounds to 3 pounds, too.)

And that's lighter than some of its new competition, too. Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra with Nvidia's RTX Spark chip is 4.4 pounds and thicker at 0.75 inches. The Lenovo Pro 9n, also with RTX Spark and its own OLED screen, is a lighter 3.64 pounds and is thicker at 16.7 mm.

There has been talk of a sturdier hinge, but it does still wobble when you touch it. No one has gotten around that issue. Comparing it to my personal MacBook Pro with the old design, the display goes back ever so slightly more, which is nice for touch but not a game-changer. It would be nice to see a 180-degree hinge for people who really want to write or draw on a flat surface (Apple Pencil support would be nice for that, too). For now, people who want that will need to stick to an iPad.

I spent some of the time reviewing this laptop thinking of Microsoft's Surface Laptop Studio, a touch-focused workstation with a hinge that lets the screen sit in three positions: a standard laptop, pulled forward over the keyboard, or lying like a tablet. That didn't succeed (neither did similar designs from Acer), but it took a stab at changing how a touch-based laptop worked. The new MacBook Pro design isn't a radical rethink of the ergonomics that have plagued touch laptops for over a decade. It's just a powerful Mac that happens to have a touchscreen.

Specifications

PROLED XDR Display

We had to wait a long time to get OLED on a Mac. PROLED XDR is a silly name, but I'll give Apple this: The screen is absolutely stunning. It's the best screen I've ever seen on a notebook, and it makes me jealous when I look back at my personal system with plain old mini LED. Everything from the default wallpaper in macOS Golden Gate to videos and photos pop on this display. The blacks are deep, the colors pop, and it can get intensely bright.

Our review unit came with the 16.3-inch (slightly enlarged thanks to thinner bezels from 16.2-inches on non-PROLED models) with 3472-by-2266 native resolution, a variable refresh rate of 10 - 120 Hz, and, of course, touch support.

I used the PROLED XDR display to watch the finale of the latest season of Slow Horses. In one scene, where the mastermind of the season's plot shows up to a restaurant to meet with the head of MI5, I was wowed by the deep blacks. The restaurant was sparsely lit, and both characters were wearing black coats. The display brought out the highlights in the environment, as well as a few red accent walls.

In our instrumented testing, the PROLED XDR screen covered 83.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut by volume and 118% sRGB, actually slightly lower than the mini LED version. I've seen them side-by-side. Trust my eyes; there's no contest here.

The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR measured 542.6 nits in our SDR brightness test, falling below the Surface Laptop Ultra, with its near-blinding 944 nits with its mini LED display. But again, PROLED simply looks better. The Surface Laptop Ultra has some light bleed and not enough local dimming zones to catch up.

The OLED panel on the Lenovo Pro 9n is the most vivid on each gamut by volume. I think it's a bit oversaturated, but if you prefer extreme pops of color, you may prefer that screen. The tandem OLED on the Dell XPS 16 was also more vivid on measurements, but was far less bright, which mutes the best aspects of OLED.

The PROLED screen showed how bright it could get with HDR content, outputting 1,964 nits in our 40% HDR test.

While I love how the display looks out of the box, Apple is offering more reference modes than ever before on a laptop, including various video, cinema, web and photography standards, and even DICOM medical imaging at 350 and 600 nits. There's also a display calibrator to fine-tune white points or perform full recalibration with external measurement tools.

Apple is far from the first company to add OLED (or, in this case, tandem OLED) to a laptop, but this stands out among the best OLED laptop displays I've seen in recent memory. The price hike to get it — $400 over mini LED models with the same chips, will be out of reach for many (though that hike also shaves half a pound off the weight). I desperately hope Apple starts bringing its brand of OLED down to the rest of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air line, too. After all, the iPad Pro and iPad Mini both have it.

We tested the MacBook Pro with a standard screen. While I haven't spent significant time with a PROLED with the matte nano-texture display, I can tell you that this looks so good with a glossy finish that I'm not sure I could risk letting the matte displays (which I usually love!) take away any of the color saturation or context on display here. And as far as reflections go, they were minimal, even next to a window.

Dynamic Island and macOS Touch Features

Outside of OLED, there are two other additions to the MacBook Pro's screen.

The first is the Dynamic Island, a group of black pixels around the punch-hole webcam that can be used to show system alerts, notifications, and ongoing activities. (If you plug in a monitor, Dynamic Island activities show up to the left of your menu bar apps and icons.) It matches modern iPhones, and it's a huge change over the notch in other Macs, which took up far too much space in the menu bar. Now, the area around the camera is at least useful, though the camera still doesn't offer Face ID.

One of my biggest annoyances with the old design was that your mouse could fall behind the notch, with no indicator of where it was. The mouse can still move behind the Dynamic Island, but now the black area grows to indicate where the pointer is, and even wiggles if you make very small movements, to remind you where the cursor is.

The other much-discussed addition is the touchscreen. Apple hasn't reinvented the wheel here. Like most Windows and Chromebook makers, it added touch functionality onto a standard laptop. Apple's announcement mentions that the "touch sensor is built directly into the display panel — not layered on top of it," suggesting the use of technology similar to the iPhone and flagship Windows laptops.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Apple has made slight adjustments to macOS 27 Golden Gate to accommodate touch. My personal favorite is that the "traffic lights" for maximizing, minimizing, or closing a window expand when you tap on them, to ensure you can hit the right one. When you click on a menu with your finger, the spacing is larger for easier touch targets. Like the iPhone, you can swipe down from the dynamic Island to invoke Siri. You can also flick windows to the sides to organize your windows, though you can already do that with a mouse or keyboard.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Many gestures that work on the trackpad also work on the touchscreen, like pinch to zoom, accessing Mission Control (swiping up with three fingers), showing Notification Center (swiping left from the edge of the screen), and moving between virtual desktops by swiping left or right with three fingers. Many apps have already been optimized for touch, but if they haven't, touch translates to a click, so it all still works fairly well.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

One of my many experiments with the touch screen included swiping across the timeline in Final Cut Pro. But in a sample project I put together, I didn't find it any better than using the keyboard and mouse — just another option. In Maxon's Cinema 4D, I felt the same way moving a model car and adjusting virtual cameras. It's an option, but it's no better than the existing way of doing things.

Perhaps my favorite use was in Blender, making adjustments to a 3D model I was sculpting. You could do everything I did with a mouse, but some features, like changing the angle of the sculpture, felt very natural with touch. That being said, after a few minutes, my arm was tired. I couldn't see using this all the time, as there are no changes to ergonomics over the usual laptop design.

For those who never want to use touch, you can turn it off in disability settings. That being said, as someone who would likely only use it for occasional scrolls, I don't see the harm in having it on, even if I don't see myself ever pulling to refresh on Safari when CMD + R is right there. (I do wish Apple included the polishing cloth with the glossy screen on our review unit and not just matte screens, however. Touch screens get fingerprints!).

I found touch most useful for iPad apps on the App Store that work natively on Mac. For instance, my go-to podcast app is Overcast, which is great on my iPhone but designed for touch on Mac. While I'm very used to navigating it with a mouse, the choice to use touch made sense here. It's also great for the iPhone simulator in Xcode, where developers can try out touch-based apps on their touchscreen Mac instead of using a pointer. The same goes for iPhone Mirroring.

There's no touch tutorial. Touch is clearly a feature on these new MacBook Pros, but not the feature. Keyboard and mouse are clearly still king.

Audio

The six-speaker sound system in the 16-inch MacBook Pro's new design, complete with updated woofers and tweeters, keeps the crown in Apple’s camp for the best laptop speakers I've ever heard.

When I listened to Justice's "Flower in a Hurricane" with the MacBook Pro, I was floored by the drums. While the rest of the speakers don't sound superbly better than the existing Pros, the low-end has improved, and deep drums and bass easily filled my apartment with deep, well-rounded sound. Everything sounded incredible, from the audio to the synths. This may be the best way I've heard this song since I've had it on a loop after its debut in a Grand Theft Auto VI trailer.

Apple has made some adjustments to how the speaker sounds with the lid shut, too. It's surprisingly good, with The Beaches' cover of "I Ran (So Far Away)" getting surprisingly loud, with the laptop plugged into a Thunderbolt dock and the lid shut, though the drums in that song weren't as snappy. Everything was slightly dampened until I opened the lid, but honestly, I could use it like this. It's still better than many other laptop speakers, with better bass.

Productivity Performance

We tested the new MacBook Pro with an M5 Max, 128GB of unified memory, and a 2TB SSD. That's the same chip and RAM as in the 14-inch MacBook Pro we tested earlier this year, though that had a 4TB drive.

The main competitors we looked at featured Nvidia's RTX Spark N1X chips, including the Surface Laptop Ultra (20-core version) and the Lenovo Pro 9n (18-core version). We also tossed in the Dell XPS 16 with a Core X7 358H — another 16-inch system with a Tandem OLED.

Unsurprisingly, this MacBook Pro can tear through most people's everyday workloads. Apple has re-tooled the cooling in this system, and it was often close to, if not ahead of, the M5 Max we tested earlier this year in a 14-inch chassis.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

On Geekbench 6, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR earned a score of 4,353 and a multi-core score of 29,430, coming close to the other M5 Max machine. Both of those scores are far ahead of the RTX Spark laptops and the Intel-based Dell.

The 2TB SSD copied roughly 25GB of files at a rate of 1,917.69 MBps, which is fast, though the 4TB SSD in the MacBook Pro we tested earlier this year was far faster. The Surface Laptop Ultra was ever-so-slightly ahead at 1,998.59 MBps.

On Handbrake, the 16-inch MacBook Pro transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 1 minute and 43 seconds, the fastest of the bunch.

On the Xcode benchmark, in which Macs compile large code bases, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro beat the older 14-inch model with the same M5 Max by 7 seconds, completing the task in 80 seconds.

Our Cinebench 2026 stress test has systems go through ten runs of multi-core rendering, which is particularly stressful. In the automatic performance mode, Apple's default out of the box on macOS 27, the system started at a score of 9,080, before eventually settling in the 8,050's due to throttling. With high performance mode, which runs the fans harder and louder, the Mac started at a score of 9,647 and was far more stable, with its lowest score (9,479) at the very end. If you need to get some tough work done faster, switching to high performance mode could help, as long as you're OK with fan noise.

Gaming and Graphics

The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display came with the same 40-core M5 Max GPU as the MacBook Pro we reviewed earlier this year.

In the new chassis, the M5 Max scored 4,355 on 3DMark Steel Nomad, beating the old system (3,865) as well as both configurations of the RTX Spark.

Running Cyberpunk 2077's benchmark at 1920 x 1200 using our typical test settings (Ray tracing ultra), the game ran at 36.24 frames per second. This is slightly faster than the 14-inch we tested earlier this year with the existing chassis, at 30.84 FPS. With the "For This Mac" preset, including MetalFX and a resolution of 2316 x 1448, the benchmark ran at 94.20 FPS.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Of all the things that haven't changed on the MacBook Pro, the most familiar are the keyboard and touchpad. That may be of some comfort to stalwarts of indirect input methods.

I was blazing fast on the keyboard, hitting 131 words per minute with a 99% accuracy rate on the monkeytype.com typing test. Both stats are on the high side for me, but I also can't blame Apple for making a comfortable keyboard with chiclet keys and a smart layout. I will praise any company that uses an inverted T for arrow keys as long as I live. Apple may not offer the deepest travel of the laptop market, but it does the job.

The massive trackpad features smooth glass, comfortable haptics, and intuitive gesture support in macOS. The 16-inch MacBook Pro's touchpad is luxuriously huge. After years of Windows laptops adding haptic trackpads to catch up, Apple's touchpad still feels great.

Upgradeability

While there are just four Torx Screws on the bottom of the MacBook Pro, there isn't much in the way of upgrading. Apple puts the RAM in the chip, and the storage is soldered down. If you need a repair, your best bet is probably Apple's Genius Bar.

Like other Macs, you should make sure you get the spec you need when you buy. Though, as you'll see in the configuration section, that could cost you quite a bit for some RAM and storage upgrades. Unfortunately, that's not unusual given the price of memory in the greater industry right now.

Battery Life

Apple's 99.6 WHr battery allows for a longer-lasting OLED laptop than its competitors, but in our testing, mini-LED model still lasts longer. On our battery test, laptops browse the web, run OpenGL tests, and stream video with the display set to 150 nits of brightness.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro with the PROLED XDR display lasted 15 hours and 57 minutes, far ahead of the OLED screen on the Lenovo Pro 9n (10:30) and the tandem OLED panel on the Dell XPS 16 (13:03). It also beat the mini-LED screen on the Surface Laptop Ultra.

The nearly 16-hour runtime is slightly short of Apple's "up to 17 hours" claim for web browsing. The only laptop that did better on our battery test was the 14-inch M5 Max laptop we tested earlier this year. That machine, with a smaller, mini-LED screen, ran for just shy of 18 hours.

Heat

The MacBook Pro can get a bit toasty under heavy load, though it's nothing I would deem unusable. Heavy workloads are probably best on a desk, though. New cooling changes the direction of the airflow in the machine, moving it out and through the back rather than out from vents near the display, in order to extend the display's lifespan.

During our Cinebench 2026 stress test, the keyboard measured 106.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which is definitely hot enough to notice. The touchpad was a cooler 88 F, while the hottest point on the bottom measured 107 F.

Our usual monitoring was not able to identify the heat on the CPU yet (this may require some software updates), but the overall temperature from the computer's other sensors was an average of 51 degrees Celsius.

Webcam

The 12-megapixel Center Stage webcam on the MacBook Pro will serve you well even on the most professional call. It looked great in meetings, even in one difficult lighting scenario when I had a lamp on one side and post-Daylight Savings Time early evening light coming in from a window next to me. The system gracefully balanced the mix of warm yellow and the products of blue hour.

I could easily smooth that mix out using the MacBook Pro camera's studio light or edge light effects, too.

Software and Warranty

We tested this new MacBook Pro with macOS 27 Golden Gate, which we highlighted on the Mac Studio, with new Apple Intelligence features, and the new Siri based on Apple Foundation Models and Gemini.

Apple's software suite includes Safari, Messages, Photos, Maps, Notes, and Reminders. Its services, including News and Apple TV, also have applications. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are still in the dock by default, but they're the Creator Studio subscription versions, which require a subscription to get full features, including AI functionality, royalty-free graphics, and additional templates.

Apple sells the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display with a one-year warranty. AppleCare+ extends protection for $17.99 per month or $179.99 per year, and also adds accidental damage and drop coverage.

Configurations

We reviewed the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display in a high-end, $7,399 configuration with an M5 Max (18 CPU cores, 40 GPU cores), 128GB of memory, and 2TB of storage.

The cheapest versions of these machines are a $2,899 14-inch system with a cut-down M5 Pro featuring 15 CPU cores and 16 GPU Cores or a $3,399 16-inch laptop with the M5 Pro featuring an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU. Both base configurations come with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, as well as the glossy screen option. (Adding the matte "Nano-texture" glass adds $150 and also nets you a polishing cloth, which isn't included with the glossy screen.)

Moving to the M5 Max moves you to $4,499 on the 14-inch laptop and $4,799 on the 16-incher for an 18-core CPU and a cut-down 32-core GPU. The full 40-core GPU is another $300.

RAM starts at 24GB, and costs $600 to goto 48GB or, on the 16-incher, $1,000 for 64GB. There's also 36GB and 128GB RAM options that also require 2TB of storage and an M5 Max (like our review unit). Storage prices are also astronomical, with a $1,000 jump between the 2TB and 4TB tier. (If you want 16TB, which I think will be a relatively rare choice, it's a $7,000 bump that requires the high-end M5 Max).

These are exceptionally expensive computers. Apple's 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros without the OLED screens are still there, however, starting at $1,999 for a 14-inch notebook with M6.

Apple sells the systems at full price, or divided up into 12 monthly payments through an installment plan. They're also available for lease through Apple Upgrade.

Bottom Line

The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display isn't a radical redesign, but it has a bunch of small changes that add up to significant improvements over previous models. The tandem OLED screen is a treat to look at, and the weight reduction is significant for anyone carrying their laptop around on the go. Even the deeper bass from the speakers is a real treat.

Performance from the M5 Max is still strong, though if you're doing simple work, you can get much better single-core performance out of an M6 Macbook Pro (though you'll give up everything else).

With no major redesign, however, Apple hasn't done anything to make touching the laptop any more comfortable than its competitors. It ultimately does get tiring. That being said, the few gestures and adjustments Apple has made to macOS are helpful, if not revolutionary. Touch really is here because it's table stakes at this point. Some will use it and others won't. It's not the selling point, other than that it's a debut for the feature.

Far more Mac user deserves a screen this good, and I hope that some flavor of OLED, even if it's not tandem OLED, eventually makes it to the entry-level MacBook Pro and even the MacBook Air. Touch, too, could be popular with younger people who grew up with all touch screens and go for the Air or the MacBook Neo.

But the starting price for the systems with PROLED displays are high, and upgrades make them exceptionally expensive. For now, the best screens in the Mac lineup (and arguably the industry) are limited to just these systems. We've waited a long time for OLED on the Mac, and for many, they'll still be waiting until it gets more affordable.

Those with the deep pockets to make the investment, though, are in for one heck of a screen.