The latest MacBook Pro comes with an incredible screen that’s bright, easy to see outdoors, and just happens to work as a touchscreen.
Apple’s promo video for the new laptop shows people typing, tapping and swiping in some very outdoorsy settings, like deep in the woods and high atop a mountain. It’s a great way to hammer home the point: The new MacBook Pro’s screen will deliver studio-quality results virtually anywhere.
You can take the MacBook Pro with touchscreen anywhere
Every MacBook Pro comes with the ports and power you need to do serious work. The new one, unveiled Wednesday and bearing the unfortunate name MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display, emphasizes the new laptop’s highly capable new screen. The fact that it’s a touchscreen, the first ever on a Mac, takes a back seat to the tandem OLED screen’s other qualities.
When I was reading Apple’s press release outlining the touchscreen MacBook Pro’s impressive specs, I couldn’t stop thinking: Isn’t this overkill for a laptop? Won’t most professionals who need this kind of high-end display be using a Studio Display XDR — or a wall of them?
One of the company’s promo photos, which shows a guy working on a felled tree in the middle of the woods, made me chuckle. But once I saw the video, with its array of people working in unlikely environments, it all made sense.
Aspirational ads make outdoor computing look amazing
Photo: Apple
Apple built the ultimate laptop for people who demand a high-end screen they can take — and use — practically anywhere. And, as with the incredibly compelling marketing materials that show people wearing the Apple Watch Ultra on incredible outdoor adventures, the new MacBook Pro ad makes you crave the new touchscreen laptop. Even if the most exotic place you’ll ever use it to work from is the work cafeteria or your scruffy back porch.
This is aspirational marketing at its finest. Apple’s fantastic at it.
“The new MacBook Pro packs features for the most demanding users,” Apple says in its press release. “The PROLED XDR display offers calibration and industry-standard reference modes in a portable form factor, making MacBook Pro an indispensable tool for filmmaking, design, and even medical imaging.”
The new laptops, which come in 14-inch and 16-inch models, also weigh less than their predecessors. So of course they’re easier to pack anywhere.
Impressive specs in a portable package
On the MacBook Pro’s product page, Apple emphasizes the whole “take this laptop to the most exotic locations and you can still kick ass with your highly technical work” message.
“Combined with up to 2000 nits peak SDR brightness and a state-of-the-art antireflective coating, the new MacBook Pro delivers exceptional clarity even in bright environments, while a nano-texture option further reduces glare and reflections,” Apple says.
To be fair, the new MacBook Pro’s PROLED XDR touchscreen specs do sound impressive: 14.2-inch (diagonal) tandem OLED display, with 3,024-by-1,986 native resolution at 254 pixels per inch; 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio; XDR brightness of up to 1,000 nits sustained full-screen, or 2,000 nits peak (HDR content only); SDR brightness of up to 1,000 nits sustained full-screen, and 2,000 nits peak (outdoor); 1 nit minimum brightness; 1 billion colors; P3 + Adobe RGB wide color gamuts; True Tone; ProMotion with adaptive refresh rates from 10Hz to 120Hz; fixed refresh rates of 47.95Hz, 48.00Hz, 50.00Hz, 59.94Hz and 60.00Hz; Multi-Touch gesture support; Dynamic Island; antireflective coating; fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating and nano-texture glass option.”
I’m sure it’s a fantastic lapto with an amazing screen — and that it’s complete overkill for a mostly deskbound word herder like me. But that doesn’t make me want it any less.
And the great news is, even if you don’t wind up toting it into the forest or to the top of a mountain, it will work just fine in your pro-equipped office. The model with the M5 Pro chip, which starts at $2,899, supports up to three external displays. The M5 Max model, which starts at an eye-watering $4,499, can manage up to four.
Watch Apple’s ad for the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display
Watch Apple’s ad for the new touchscreen MacBook Pro and just try to not want one of these pricey new laptops for yourself — even if you don’t have any mountaineering trips on your calendar.
Lewis Wallace is the managing editor of Cult of Mac and author of our weekly newsletter, The Weekender. He appears weekly on the Cult of Mac podcast. You can find him on X @lewiswallace.
