After years of insisting that Macs and touchscreens don't mix, Apple has finally changed its mind. The company's first touchscreen MacBook Pro, unveiled at its "Pro and Tell" event on October 28, is now official in India with prices starting at Rs 3,49,900 for the 14-inch model. Pre-orders are open, and the laptop comes in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes with Apple's new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.
Why this launch matters
For more than a decade, Apple kept touch input on the iPad and away from the Mac, arguing that reaching up to a laptop screen was awkward. The new MacBook Pro keeps the familiar keyboard and trackpad but adds a multi-touch display that supports scrolling, pinching, rotating and drawing. It is the first touch display on any Mac, and it signals a big shift in how Apple sees its pro laptops.
The display itself is also new. Apple calls it PROLED XDR, a tandem OLED panel that replaces the mini-LED screens of earlier models.
India price list
| 14-inch, M5 Pro | Rs 3,49,900 |
| 16-inch, M5 Pro | Rs 4,09,900 |
| 14-inch, M5 Max | Rs 5,49,900 |
| 16-inch, M5 Max | Rs 5,89,900 |
| Optional upgrades | Nano-texture glass, more CPU/GPU cores, memory and storage |
| Status | Pre-orders open; store availability from early November |
Display: OLED, touch and a Dynamic Island
The tandem OLED panel reaches up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness for both HDR and SDR content and offers a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio. It runs at a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz and covers the P3 and Adobe RGB colour spaces, which will matter to photographers and video editors. An optional nano-texture finish cuts down reflections.
Borrowing from the iPhone, the MacBook Pro also gets a Dynamic Island at the top of the screen. It shows Spotlight, Live Activities, music controls and Siri.
M5 Pro and M5 Max performance
Under the hood, buyers can choose between the M5 Pro and M5 Max. Apple claims the M5 Pro is up to 10.9 times faster than the M1 Pro, while the M5 Max is up to 12 times faster than the M1 Max. Both chips get a GPU with enhanced shader cores, a third-generation ray-tracing engine and Dynamic Caching, plus Neural Accelerators inside the GPU cores for AI work.
Unified memory goes up to 128GB and storage up to 16TB, with Apple claiming up to twice the storage speed. A redesigned thermal system is meant to sustain performance during long workloads such as video exports or running local AI models. Apple specifically highlights apps like LM Studio, Comfy Desktop, Msty Studio and Topaz Video, which run models on the device.
Battery, ports and other features
- Battery: Up to 24 hours, according to Apple, with 50% charge in about 30 minutes.
- Weight: About 1.38 kg for the 14-inch and 1.82 kg for the 16-inch.
- Ports: Three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI, SDXC card slot, MagSafe 3 and a headphone jack.
- Wireless: Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.
- Audio and camera: Six-speaker system with a new woofer design, three-mic array with Voice Isolation, and a 12MP Centre Stage camera with Desk View.
- Software: macOS 27 with Apple Intelligence; Touch ID for secure login.
Should Indian buyers wait or buy?
At Rs 3,49,900 to start, the touchscreen MacBook Pro is aimed squarely at professionals: video editors, designers, developers and people running AI tools on their own machines. For them, the OLED display, the M5 Max option and up to 128GB of memory are real upgrades.
For students and everyday users, this is far more laptop than they need. Existing MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, often available with festive and bank offers, may offer much better value. If touch input is the main draw, it is also worth trying the new display in a store before committing such a large sum.
What happens next
Pre-orders are live on Apple's India online store, and the laptops are expected to reach Apple's retail stores and authorised resellers in early November. Bank card offers and exchange deals are usually announced around the sale date, so buyers who can wait a few days may get a better effective price.
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