MacBook Pro PROLED XDR Starts at $2,899: Reviewers Say Touch Is the Least Interesting Part

The MacBook Pro PROLED XDR is Apple’s most expensive laptop yet, and early reviews suggest the thing most people will talk about, touch, is the least important reason to buy it. Apple added a touchscreen to the Mac, but the reviewers we looked at spend far more time on the OLED panel and a redesign that makes the machine noticeably lighter.

A lighter MacBook Pro, with a catch at the checkout

9to5Mac’s Chance Miller frames the weight loss as the quiet headline. The 14-inch model drops to 3.0 pounds, and the 16-inch falls from 4.7 pounds to 4.0 pounds. Miller notes that both now weigh roughly what the 2016 MacBook Pros did, despite larger displays and far more powerful hardware. He also says they avoid the butterfly keyboard and thermal problems that defined that era. Both are slightly thinner too: the 14-inch measures 0.59 inches (down from 0.61) and the 16-inch 0.63 inches (down from 0.66).

The sources disagree slightly on the 14-inch baseline. 9to5Mac says the previous model weighed 3.5 pounds, while Engadget compares it with 3.7 pounds for the standard MacBook Pro. Either way, the 14-inch is clearly lighter, and Engadget says it feels closer to a MacBook Air than a Pro.

The weight savings come mainly from swapping the mini-LED display for OLED, which needs no separate backlight. Apple also uses custom on-cell touch technology that builds touch sensing into the panel instead of stacking extra layers. Miller adds that many smaller engineering tweaks contributed. He tested the 16-inch model and says it “feels less like a tank.” It has him reconsidering his usual preference for the smaller size.

Then there is the cost. Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says the 14-inch MacBook Pro PROLED XDR starts at $2,899, which is $900 more than the standard 14-inch MacBook Pro. The 16-inch starts at $3,399, or $400 more than its standard counterpart. He calls the pricing odd at a time when component costs for RAM and storage are already rising. His rating is 8.8 out of 10, and “so damn expensive” tops his list of cons.

The OLED display is the real selling point

Apple’s clunky full name, “MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display,” signals what it considers the big differentiator. Engadget lists the panels at up to 2,000 nits of peak HDR brightness and 1,000 nits sustained full-screen, which it calls the brightest OLED screens it has seen in laptops. It also cites a 10,000,000-to-1 contrast ratio. The screens are slightly larger than before, at 14.2 and 16.3 inches, and thinner bezels add to the immersive feel.

Miller is blunter, calling the display “stunning” and saying its color saturation, contrast and deep blacks beat any other laptop he has seen, including high-end Windows machines. Tom’s Hardware titled its review “The screen that every Mac deserves,” which points the same way. We could not access that review’s full text, so we cannot say more about its findings.

Hardawar offers a more measured view. After hundreds of hours on Apple’s mini-LED MacBook Pros, he found the difference hard to spot in everyday use. Dark, high-contrast video was another matter. He calls the closing fireworks scenes of F1: The Movie, set against a black night sky, “revelatory.”

Touch works, but it is not the point

Engadget opens with the line that “the least interesting thing about Apple’s new touchscreen MacBook Pro is the touchscreen.” Hardawar says Apple took a very basic approach. You can swipe to scroll or manipulate 3D objects, and touches register as mouse clicks throughout macOS. Creative software makers such as Adobe and Blackmagic plan to support it more fully. There is no Apple Pencil support, so anyone who wants to draw still needs an iPad. Engadget’s verdict is that touch “doesn’t add much.”

The 9to5Mac headline, “A lot more than touch,” makes a similar point. The notable changes lie elsewhere, in the lighter chassis, slimmer bezels and rounded display corners. The glowing Apple logo is back as well. Without a backlight to borrow from, Apple tied the logo’s brightness to the screen’s and to ambient light. Miller calls it unnecessary but is thrilled to see it return.

The Dynamic Island, borrowed from the iPhone, replaces the notch. It houses the webcam and serves as a home for Spotlight and Live Activities. Engadget finds it slightly less noticeable than the old notch but not a major visual change. Other listed strengths include better speakers, fast performance and plenty of ports.

What about the “favorite MacBook ever” verdict?

TechRadar’s piece declares the MacBook Pro PROLED XDR 14-inch its writer’s favorite MacBook ever, and says it should leave many MacBook Air users feeling jealous. The text we could access contained only site navigation, so we cannot report the reasoning behind that claim. The headline does fit the other reviews, though, since the lighter 14-inch model is the one Engadget says feels closest to an Air.

Taken together, the reviews describe a MacBook Pro that is lighter and has a better screen, at a much higher price. For those who want the sleekest MacBook Pro available, the MacBook Pro PROLED XDR looks like a strong choice. Engadget’s Hardawar hopes Apple keeps the non-touch models around, and perhaps cuts their prices.

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File photo: A 2021 14-inch Silver MacBook Pro.jpg by Oops4321, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.