avday Apple’s first touchscreen MacBook Pro reaches UK buyers on Friday 6 November, and its £2,899 starting price buys the laptop alone. A charger is £59 to £99 extra.
In the US, the same model costs $2,899 with a charger in the box. Pre-orders opened in both countries on 28 October, the day Apple announced the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display.
Touchscreen MacBook Pro UK price
| Model | UK price from | With education pricing |
|---|---|---|
| 14-inch, M5 Pro | £2,899 | £2,749 |
| 16-inch, M5 Pro | £3,399 | £3,199 |
| 14-inch, M5 Max | £4,499 | £4,199 |
| 16-inch, M5 Max | £4,799 | £4,499 |
Apple’s UK spec sheet lists the power adapter as sold separately on both sizes. Its press release prices them at £59 for 70W, £79 for 96W and £99 for 140W. In the US, the 14-inch comes with a 70W or 96W adapter depending on the chip, and the 16-inch with the 140W.
UK prices are the same numbers as US ones, in pounds instead of dollars. Apple’s UK store charges 20% VAT on orders. US prices are listed before sales tax.
What touch does, and what’s missing
Apple lists these gestures:
- scroll and pinch to zoom
- drag and drop
- double-tap a window to fill the screen
Apple says many existing apps work with touch right away, because macOS turns touches into clicks. Its own apps are already set up for it.
Three things to know before you pre-order:
- Big third-party touch apps come later. Apple names Word, Excel, Lightroom, DaVinci Resolve and Blender, but its footnote says they’ll arrive “later this year”.
- No word on Apple Pencil. It isn’t mentioned in the announcement or the UK specs.
- Early hands-on, early quirks. Engadget’s Nathan Ingraham wrote that touch “works just as you’d expect”. In a short session he saw “occasional stutters while switching between Spaces or full-screen apps”, which he partly put down to being new to touch on a Mac.
Is this the MacBook Ultra?
Yes, in all but name. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman first reported a “MacBook Ultra” in March, while warning Apple could keep the MacBook Pro name. It did. The regular MacBook Pro stays on sale, with a mini-LED screen and no touch.
The screen and the rest
The display is tandem OLED, where the regular model uses mini-LED, at up to 2,000 nits at peak. Apple quotes up to 24 hours of battery life from its own tests.
Inside are M5 Pro or M5 Max chips with up to 128GB of memory, enough to run AI coding models on your own machine. Block says its Dessa voice model runs locally on a MacBook Pro with M4 Max or better.
If touch in your own apps is the reason to buy, the apps’ release dates matter more than 6 November.
