As Apple's new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display laptops go on sale, I'm still at a loss as to who these multi-thousand-dollar laptops are really for, and whether Apple even knows the answer to that question itself.
These laptops, which sit above the already exceptional MacBook Pro in Apple's lineup, start at $2,899 for the 14-inch model. Opt for the 16-inch version, and you'll hand over at least $3,399.
That's hundreds of dollars more than their comparable MacBook Pro cousins. Bear in mind that these machines use the same M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. The same SSD and unified memory, too.
Yes, I'll grant you that they're lighter, and sure, there have been some tweaks to the speakers and ventilation. But the real selling point is the PROLED XDR appended to the laptop's name.
It's an OLED display, which brings with it its own benefits. But the media event Apple held to show these new laptops off to influencers and YouTubers focused heavily on the touchscreen aspect.
This brings me back to wondering just who, beyond those YouTubers and influencers, will buy this thing for touch over a vanilla MacBook Pro.
The marketing push
Apple's marketing, including an admittedly impressive YouTube ad, shows the PROLED MacBook Pro being used in the usual ways. We've videographers working with videos, and musicians working with music.
This being 2026, there's also an (un)healthy smattering of people doing AI things. Because these laptops are crazy-fast for that sort of thing.
These things are the basics of any Apple laptop ad from the last, well, forever. But this time everyone is stabbing at their display as if someone stole their trackpad.
Smudging the glorious OLED display
The idea is simple. The OLED displays, with their 2,000-nit brightness and incredible color accuracy, make them perfect for creatives.
Those fast M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are suited to people who work with multiple 4K and 8K video streams simultaneously. Huge amounts of RAM are just what those working with pro-level audio clamor for. These laptops are ready-made for these people.
So, of course, they'll also want to use their fingers to scrub through timelines. They'll ditch their keyboard shortcut-laden workflows and multitouch trackpad muscle memory to prod and poke a display because, well, reasons.
That's the theory, at least. In reality, I'm not convinced.
Ready for new customers
I've seen the argument made that Apple has added touchscreen support to the Mac because that's how the kids use computers these days. Kids have spent the last decade and change using iPads, swiping through apps with demon-like precision.
The consensus is that, of course, these kids will want a laptop they can touch. Any laptop that they can't will be left behind, a relic to sit beside Macintoshes and Pippins in museums.
This is an argument I can almost get behind, too. There's logic there, to be sure. Until you scratch the surface.
Apple might really want to capture the up-and-coming kids and teenagers who use CapCut to edit video on an iPhone. But if it does, it's using the wrong laptop to do it.
These kids aren't buying $3,000 MacBook Pros, PROLED or otherwise. They're buying a MacBook Neo or a MacBook Air. Maybe, at a push, a 14-inch M6 MacBook Pro.
Remember, we had touchscreens before we had OLED. Or PROLED, for that matter. Touch can be added to any MacBook Pro Apple wants it to be added to.
But it wasn't. It was added to a whole new class of laptop that, in the midst of an affordability crisis, starts at almost $3,000.
So again, I'm unclear who the touch functionality is for.
I'd argue the two markets everyone talks about either won't want it or can't afford it.
The silver lining
The good news is that, the touchscreen aspect of the PROLED MacBook Pro can be ignored. It can even be turned off.
Unlike when Microsoft went all touchy with Windows 8 and broke everything, Apple's macOS looks and works the same as before. If you do fondle the screen with a meat stick, it'll react. Otherwise, it's the same old macOS.
That brings its own problems, admittedly. Something as simple as closing a window means tapping the too-small traffic light controls, moving to where they just expanded to, and tapping again.
This oddness extends elsewhere throughout the touchscreen experience. There's a lot of long-pressing to open menus, all while waving your hand at your display.
But it sounds like, once you've done it a couple of times out of curiosity, you need never do it again. You can even test it out for yourself right now because it works with external displays and iPads via Sidecar, too.
The good news keeps on coming, because by all accounts, there's a damned fine MacBook Pro once you ignore everything else. Like the other MacBook Pros, these things are blazing fast and whisper-quiet.
They also have the added benefit of that OLED technology, too. Not that I'd seen anyone desperate to see the back of their mini-LED MacBook Pros prior to the arrival of PROLED.
Apple could, perhaps even should, have marketed the PROLED MacBook Pro as a new machine with an even better display. I feel that it should have waited until the M6 Pro and M6 Max were here, by means of differentiation.
They probably didn't, for quarterly financial reasons, more than anything else.
For users, we have a laptop that's too familiar, identical in terms of performance, and hugely costly. And the feature everyone focuses on is one that all the reviews say people won't use after the first day or two.
The PROLED MacBook Pro feels like a machine that didn't need to ship when it did. It might be a more compelling option when the normal MacBook Pro isn't lurking behind it in the lineup, but for now, it seems impossible to recommend to anyone but the vanishingly small minority.
And that's not a good place for any new Apple product to be in.
