MacBook Pro (M5) review: Same on the outside, supercharged on the inside

What We Love

The 14-inch MacBook Pro is the sweet spot for those who want most of the flagship features found on the pricier MacBook Pro models — but at a lower price. Starting from £1,599, you'll find the same stunning Liquid Retina XDR display with ProMotion, a useful selection of ports, all-day (and night) battery life, superb speaker system, and Centre Stage webcam, to name just a few.

Without this model, the MacBook Pro lineup would start from £1,999 for the 14-inch model with an M4 Pro — a model that'll likely be superseded by an M5 Pro in the coming months. That's exactly £1,000 more than the entry-level MacBook Air, which currently ships with the standard M4.

For those who want some of the trimming of the Pro lineup without committing to pay twice the price of the MacBook Air, this is a superb option.

And with the arrival of the speedy new M5 system-on-a-chip, it's even better.

The M5 is based on a more advanced 3-nanometre process, which improves speed and efficiency. Not only that, Apple has upgraded the fastest performance CPU cores compared to the previous M4 generation, while the GPU has been rearchitected, with neural accelerators in each of the 10 cores. All that means M5 brings some pretty impressive gains, even when compared to its predecessor, which was released just 12 months ago.

The biggest step-up can be seen in Artificial Intelligence tasks, with up to 3.5x faster AI performance than M4. Compared to the older M1, which was the first Apple-designed system-on-a-chip to be featured inside a MacBook Pro, this new generation is 6x speedier.

That's a supersonic leap, and you'll feel it as soon as you fire up AI apps like Topaz Video or Msty Studio.

With the introduction of macOS 26 Tahoe, Apple made its proprietary Apple Intelligence models accessible to third-party developers as well as Mac owners via the Shortcut app. For example, you can create a smart folder that sits on your desktop that'll automatically leverage on-device AI models to read the contents of a file and create a bullet point summary output as a .txt file next to the original for anything dropped into the folder.

With the M5 under the bonnet, tasks like this run in the blink of an eye — even when you're asking the local AI model to summarise a dissertation-length file. And since everything is taking place on-device, you'll be able to continue using these tricks when there's no Wi-Fi, handy if you're often working on a train or aeroplane.

The higher memory bandwidth in this latest generation system-on-a-chip means your favourite macOS apps will launch faster than ever. Seriously, it's jaw-dropping to click every icon in the Dock and watch everything load, picking up with the documents, browser windows, or video projects, just as you left them without a stutter.

Coupled with the speedier silicon, the solid-state drive (SSD) inside the MacBook Pro is 2x faster than its predecessor, so read and write times will be significantly improved.

Following Apple's decision to increase the unified memory across all of its MacBook lineup last year, the base-model £1,599 MacBook Pro arrives with 16GB of RAM — an upgrade that would've cost you an extra £200 at checkout just a few years ago — and 512GB of storage. If you want to match those specifications with the new iPad Pro, which is equipped with the same M5 system-on-a-chip, you'll need to spend an extra £249.

If you're a student, Apple Store education pricing starts at £1,499 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

In our time with the M5-powered MacBook Pro, we'd regularly spend the day bouncing between 50-odd Google Chrome tabs spread across a dozen web browser windows, dialling in for video calls with lighting and voice isolation adjustments running in real-time, exporting large PNGs from Pixelmator Pro, scheduling appointments in Fantastical, and replying to text messages via Messages and WhatsApp. We wouldn't close any of these apps and, more often than not, in the background, Apple Music would be streaming a playlist.

It's a workflow that's successfully broken many laptops before, so it's noteworthy that this M5-equipped MacBook Pro shrugged it off. And all of this from a device with 24-hours of battery life.

When it is time to recharge the MacBook Pro, it supports fast-charging up to 50% in around 30 minutes. If you're forgetful and need a quick battery boost before you dash out of the door, this upgrade is a real lifesaver.

While the MacBook Pro does support the redesigned MagSafe 3 charger, which snaps to the side of the laptop with magnets and detaches if anyone trips over the power cable — saving your £1,599 laptop from an impromptu flying lesson! — it is possible to recharge via USB-C, so those who like to pack light can bring a single cable for their iPhone 16, MacBook Pro, iPad, AirPods 4, Kindle, Nintendo Switch, and other gadgets.

Sadly, there's no USB-C plug in the box with the 14-inch MacBook Pro, so you'll need to budget an extra £59 for Apple's 65W USB-C Power Adapter from the nearest Apple Store, or around half that cost if you're shopping for the latest Anker models on Amazon.

For wireless connectivity, the latest MacBook Pro models sport Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

Aside from the extra horsepower (and ports), perhaps the best reason to spend the extra to graduate from the £999 MacBook Air up to the £1,599 MacBook Pro is that Liquid Retina XDR display. It's the same screen used on the MacBook Pro lineup last year, but that doesn't mean it's still not utterly breathtaking.

Colours are vibrant (without being oversaturated) and blacks are pleasingly inky, thanks to this perfectly-tuned mini-LED panel. The 14-inch MacBook Pro supports up to 1,000nits of brightness for SDR content when viewed outdoors, rising to 1,600nits peak brightness for HDR content. Whether you're in the window seat of your local café or working outdoors, everything on-screen is easily visible and suitably eye-catching.

Despite bringing its ProMotion display technology to a non-Pro device with the iPhone 17 this time around, the MacBook Pro remains the only laptop in the lineup with an adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz for buttery-smooth scrolling and system animations.

Apple offers an optional nano-texture glass designed to reduce glare and distraction from reflections for an extra £150 at checkout. While the display has a slightly frosted look when it's switched off, it doesn't hinder the viewing experience when everything is powered on. The nano-texture is transformational — cutting out any reflections.

As you'd expect from a MacBook, the keyboard is an utter joy to type on, with a nice amount of travel and satisfying thunk when hammering out an email at speed. The expansive trackpad remains unmatched in the industry, intelligently rejecting accidental swipes but responding to your gestures like a mind-reader.

What We Don't Love

Given the immense power of the Apple M5 system-on-a-chip, that jaw-dropping 14.2" Liquid Retina XDR display, the useful array of ports, fast-charging and 24-hour battery life, the £1,599 starting price for the new 14-inch MacBook Pro isn't outrageous. As discussed above, it's a nice middle ground between the £999 MacBook Pro and the all-singing, all-dancing £1,999 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro.

However, straying beyond the entry-level configuration can get very expensive.

Apple charges £200 to upgrade from the standard 16GB configuration of RAM up to 24GB, and you'll need to spend the same to double the SSD up to 1TB for those who want to store thousands of videos, photos, music, games and apps locally.

You'll also need to buy a USB-C power adapter, since Apple doesn't include one in the box when you buy a MacBook Pro in the UK or mainland Europe.

Granted, the superb build quality and vast amount of headroom built into the M5 means this is likely to be a laptop that lasts you for years and years (we've recently retired a decade-old MacBook Pro that was powered by an Intel chipset that didn't have anything like the optimisations or brawn of this model...) but there's no doubt that liquidating the Cash ISA to upgrade the basic configuration at checkout is really going to hurt.

It would've been nice to see Apple's custom-designed C1X modem make an appearance in the new 14-inch MacBook Pro. It offers speedy 5G mobile internet connections with a focus on efficiency, so it would be a nice option for those who might be willing to lose a couple of hours of battery life in exchange for a reliable internet connection when travelling away from Wi-Fi networks.

Final Verdict

We really didn't have any gripes about the redesigned 14-inch MacBook Pro that launched last autumn. That model borrowed many of the features that had previously been reserved for the priciest Pro laptops, like fast Thunderbolt 4 ports on both sides of the chassis and the gorgeous Space Black finish. You'll also benefit from a stunning Liquid Retina XDR display with 120Hz ProMotion capable of 1,000nit brightness on SDR content.

Battery life was increased to 24-hours on a single charge, with the ability to refill 50% of the tank — more than enough for a long-haul flight or full day in the office — in under 30 minutes plugged into the wall. Apple also added support for its nifty Centre Stage feature to the new 12MP webcam, which automatically keeps you centred in the frame at all times during calls. As you move around, the camera appears to pan and move around — like you've got a camera operator working behind-the-scenes to ensure your Zoom calls look impeccable.

This new model keeps all of that, but includes the turbocharged M5 system-on-a-chip.

This silicon is so exquisitely powerful that only those with the most taxing workflows — professional photographers who want to batch-process thousands of high-resolution images, videographers looking to splice together multiple ProRes video files, and AI enthusiasts who want to automate everything via local models — will come close to witnessing the limitations of this new M5 chip.

For most, the M5-equipped MacBook Pro will take everything in its stride, while still delivering superb battery life and one best macOS visual experiences, thanks to its stunning Liquid Retina XDR display. If the MacBook Air isn't quite enough for you, this supercharged model almost certainly is.