- Apple has officially announced the M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch
- It is among the first Apple products with an M5 chip with the iPad Pro M5
- However, we will have to wait longer for the M5 Pro and M5 Max versions
Apple has followed up on yesterday’s not-so-subtle teaser and officially announced its new M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch – one of the first products to feature its latest version of Apple Silicon alongside the new iPad Pro M5.
The main upgrade of the new MacBook Pro is the new M5 chip, which promises to boost speed, performance and efficiency. But unlike last year’s MacBook Pro M4, there’s only one M5 14-inch model so far – it looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer for the more powerful M5 Pro and M5 Max versions for the 16-inch model, which currently still has the M4 Pro and M4 Max.
You can pre-order the M5 MacBook Pro from today with prices starting at $1,599 / £1,599 / $2,499 before delivery on 22 October. Not sure if you should buy one? Here’s what’s new, plus our early, spec-based verdict.
1. It launches Apple’s new M5 chip
Apple’s new M5 chip takes over from its M4 series, which arrived last year (M4 in May 2024 and M4 Pro and M4 Max in October 2024).
Naturally, the M5 is expected to be a decent step up from the M4, if not a massive leap. An M5 iPad Pro leak previously suggested a 12% boost for single-core performance and around a 15% improvement for multi-core.
In fact, Apple particularly touts improvements around AI tasks, saying you get up to 3.5x faster AI performance than the M4 chip and up to 6x faster performance than the M1. It’s all thanks to a next-generation 10-core GPU that apparently has a neural accelerator in each core.
For specific scenarios, Apple says the M5 MacBook Pro offers 7.7x faster AI video enhancement performance in Topaz Video compared to an M1 model, or 1.8x faster than the M4 version. In other words, the step up from an M1 will be very noticeable, but will be smaller compared to the previous MacBook Pro.
2. There is now a 4TB option
Another new spec in this relatively minor update is that SSD performance will apparently be twice as fast as the M4 model, which Apple says means you can “load a local LLM faster”.
You can also spec a version of the M5 MacBook Pro with a 4TB SSD, but that will inevitably cost you – it adds an extra $1,000 / £1,000 / AU$1,500 to the price tag. Practice
This option was previously only available on the M4 Pro chip, but now base M5 MacBook Pro owners can also go bankrupt.
3. The design is otherwise largely the same
As the rumors predicted, the M5 MacBook Pro is physically a virtually identical beast to the M4 MacBook Pro 14-inch.
That’s no bad thing – we gave the laptop’s design full marks in our review, saying that it “looks and feels like it was carved out of a few pieces of 100% recycled black aluminium” and that “nothing feels or seems like it was left to chance”.
As before, it weighs 3.4 lbs / 1.55 kg, which means it’s not as light as the MacBook Air, but still very portable. The ports are also the same, meaning you have an HDMI out, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, a MagSafe charging port, SD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
It also has the same Liquid Retina XDR display with a nano-texture option (which costs an extra $150 / £150 / AU$230), and offers 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness and 1,000 nits for SDR content. While that display is great in its own right, we called the nanotexture coating a “transformative technology” in our M4 MacBook Pro review.
4. The price is identical to the M4 model
We had feared a slight price bump on the M5 MacBook Pro, but luckily all versions cost the same as before, as you can see below.
The only differences are the optional extras – for example you can now get a 4TB version for an extra $1,000 / £1,000 / AU$1,500. Of course, that base price can quickly add up once you’ve added extra total memory and more…
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch |
M4 MacBook Pro 14-inch |
|
16 GB total memory / 512 GB storage space |
$1,599 / £1,599 / $2,499 |
$1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499 |
|
16 GB total memory / 1 TB storage space |
$1,799 / £1,799 / AU$2,799 |
$1,799 / £1,799 / AU$2,799 |
|
24 GB total memory / 1 TB storage space |
$1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,099 |
$1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,099 |
5. You can pre-order it now
If you’ve been waiting to pounce on an M5 MacBook Pro, you can pre-order it right now at the Apple Store.
Apple says it will arrive with customers starting next Wednesday, October 22, so just wait a week if you get in early.
Should you buy one?
This is clearly a relatively minor update to the MacBook Pro, but it’s still a very compelling option for creatives that will almost certainly plague the upper tiers of our best laptops guide.
Whether you should pre-order one or not depends on your current situation. If, like me, you’re struggling with an earlier Intel-powered MacBook Pro whose days are numbered, it certainly looks like a very solid buy—especially if you regularly do AI-powered tasks like video or photo editing.
But if you already have an M-series MacBook Pro – or prefer lighter options like the MacBook Air – it might be worth the wait for a few reasons. First, the early M6 MacBook Pro rumors suggest that the model could be a major upgrade with an OLED screen (possibly even with touchscreen), a thinner design and of course M6 chips made with the smaller 2nm process.
Also, a recently leaked Apple Mac roadmap suggests we’ll likely get 13-inch and 15-inch M5 MacBook Air refreshes in early 2026. Of course, this is just rumor at this stage, but it’s food for thought if you’re hovering over the M5 MacBook Pro pre-order button. Decisions, decisions…
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