After years of resisting, Apple today launched a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen starting at $2,899. The release comes nearly 10 years after the company first tried integrating touchscreens on its laptops, with its Touch Bar on a MacBook Pro, which it later went on to remove.
The new MacBook Pro more fully embraces the touchscreen, offering a new PROLED XDR Display in both 14-inch and 16-inch screen sizes. The device is powered by M5 Pro and M5 Max chips as options to choose from, along with up to 128GB of unified memory and up to 16TB of storage. The display has 2,000 nits peak HDR and SDR brightness and a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
To make the new MacBook easy to use, Apple designed a hinge that stabilizes the screen when users touch it. This also helps to stabilize the camera when you are on a video call and trying to access content on the display.
In addition, the screen will include a Dynamic Island-style cutout instead of the notch that’s present on most of the current MacBooks. Plus, the new MacBook features a six-speaker array with a new woofer design for better sound.
The 14-inch Pro weighs 3.0 pounds (1.38 kg), and the 16-inch Pro weighs 4.0 pounds (1.82 kg) — lighter than its non-touch predecessors.
Both feature three Thunderbolt 5 ports, an HDMI port, an SDXC card slot, MagSafe, and a headphone jack. Users can hook up three external displays on the M5 Pro variant and up to four displays on the M5 Max variant.
The Touchscreen MacBook Pro 14-inch starts at $2,899, and the 16-inch version starts at $3,399.
Consumers can place a preorder for the new touchscreen MacBook Pro from October 30, and the device will be available starting November 6.
The new Touchscreen MacBook marks two marquee product launches for new CEO John Ternus, who also introduced the company’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, in September. Various Apple executives, including Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, have scoffed at the idea of a touchscreen Mac in the past. Jobs famously called the idea “ergonomically terrible” at one point. However, rumors of the company working on such a variant started circulating nearly three years before today’s introduction.
The launch follows yesterday’s unveiling of a new standard MacBook Pro with the M6 chip in 14-inch size starting from $1,999.
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Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web.
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