Apple Just Launched a Touchscreen MacBook Pro With a Tandem OLED Display (and the Glowing Logo Is Back!)

My MacBook Pro looks like basically every modern MacBook Pro, because Apple hasn’t really changed the design since 2021, which is exactly my model. Same notch, same shape, same everything.

But today, at a media-only event, Apple quietly launched something completely different: a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen and a tandem OLED display, two OLED layers stacked in one screen, for the first time ever on a Mac. And they brought back the glowing Apple logo!!! 🍎✨

A quiet launch, no big keynote

There was no big livestream this time. Apple invited selected press to an all-day launch experience in Los Angeles called “Pro and Tell”, and announced the new MacBook Pro with a press release the same day. Pre-orders opened straight away.

And yes, this is the same company that spent years telling us touchscreens on laptops don’t make sense. Times change 😅

What’s new

• Tandem OLED (“PROLED XDR”): instead of one OLED layer, there are two stacked on top of each other. That means more brightness (up to 2,000 nits), a crazy 10,000,000:1 contrast, perfect blacks, and 10–120Hz ProMotion. Apple first used tandem OLED on the iPad Pro in 2024, and now it’s finally on the Mac.
• Touchscreen, for the first time on a Mac: the touch sensor is built right into the display, and you can scroll, pinch and rotate like on an iPad. Apple also redesigned the hinge so the screen doesn’t wobble when you touch it.
• The glowing Apple logo is back: the logo on the lid lights up again, about 10 years after Apple removed it in 2016. Pure nostalgia.
• No more notch: it’s replaced by a smaller Dynamic Island, like on the iPhone, with thinner bezels around the screen.
• Thinner and lighter: the 14-inch is about 3 lb (half a pound lighter) and the 16-inch about 4 lb.
• More battery: up to 24 hours, and fast charging to 50% in about 30 minutes.

My 2021 MacBook Pro vs the new one

Since I use the 2021 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro every day, I wanted to see how much has really changed:

The ports are basically the same layout (good, Apple learned from the dongle years), but almost everything else is new. After five years of the same design, this is the biggest MacBook Pro change since my model came out.

Prices and availability

Pre-orders are open now, and it arrives in stores on Friday, November 6, in silver or space black, with an optional nano-texture screen. The regular MacBook Pro models from March stay on sale at the same prices, so the OLED version is a new premium option, not a replacement.

Should you upgrade?

If you have an M1 or M2 MacBook Pro like mine, the jump is huge: OLED, touch, way more performance and a lot more battery. But it’s also expensive, starting at $2,899. If your current MacBook still does everything you need, there’s no rush, and it’s probably smart to wait for the first reviews and see how the touchscreen and the new hinge hold up. After the iPhone Duo’s first week, I’d wait a little before buying any first-generation Apple hardware 😅