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Waiting for the Perfect MacBook Pro? 2026 Might Be the Year
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Still have my M1 Pro MBP from when those were debuted and still happy with it. I plan to use this one till it is unusable, parts fail, or another scenario.
At work I am on an M2 Pro leased MBP and next year when my lease is up I will most likely be on an M4 model.
At work I am on an M2 Pro leased MBP and next year when my lease is up I will most likely be on an M4 model.
I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but the display on the MBPro is actually good enough for me, more or less, even without OLED. That experience is not true anywhere else but I find the 16” miniLED to be leagues better than the old iPad Pro Display (I adore the tandem OLED on my iPP). That said, I look forward to higher quality desktop displays, whether that’s Apple picking up MS tech again (the reason macOS looks terrible on non-retina displays is a software issue) or some major tech overhauls of retina level displays (40” 8K120 anyone else?)
M6 feels like the right time to upgrade from an M1. The M5 will prob be a tiny performance bump since it's still on 3nm. M4 is still also frustrating still using wi-fi 6e and not 7.
I actually like mini-LED and not sure if I care much about OLED, esp if it has burn in issues.
Where Apple really needs to fix their displays is external monitors. The 5k apple studio display for $2000 with no HDR, mini-LED, or OLED running 9 year old tech is a joke. Those monitors are roughly 9yr old tech at this point if you look at the LG ultrafine release date.
I actually like mini-LED and not sure if I care much about OLED, esp if it has burn in issues.
Where Apple really needs to fix their displays is external monitors. The 5k apple studio display for $2000 with no HDR, mini-LED, or OLED running 9 year old tech is a joke. Those monitors are roughly 9yr old tech at this point if you look at the LG ultrafine release date.
This, I’d much rather have the notch than a hole punch in a laptop screen. Also a hole punch will make adding an aftermarket shutter like I do on all my laptops harder.
One really useful thing that the Face ID camera system enables is "Eye Contact." On iPhones and iPads with Face ID, Apple digitally adjusts pupil position to make it look like you're looking directly at the camera, even if you're not looking at the camera.
This would be a VERY good feature for laptops as well, particularly in this era of remote work and video meetings.
This one triggered me about this all over again. I usually don't notice the notch, until I can't click on a menu bar item I need. Partially because so many apps insist on non-removable menu items these days.
But still, I don't understand how they let it ship in that state, much less have left it that way for all these years now.
The menu bar is an absolutely fundamental part of the Mac experience. It just makes me feel like the executives don't actually use their own Macs, certainly not in actual laptop form factor.
I still haven't seen one of those systems work for screens larger than a phone without looking creepy. Even on the phone I find it a little creepy, but in that case it only has to move the pupils a very small amount.
The distance difference even on a laptop just makes it look uncanny to me.
Those holding in the US better be happy about the price if tariffs stay as they are! Just think of it - all that extra cost doesn't even go into the making of the product!
The internal 5g modem sounds great but it would be pointless if we still have to connect to wifi to control homepods and the apple tv.
I don't need OLED, but I'd love to see at least a mini-LED 5k display, or just something with HDR / better backlighting control. Just ANYTHING better than what they have now for the money.
Cellular Connectivity
Apple in October 2024 overhauled its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, adding M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, Thunderbolt 5 ports on higher-end models, display changes, and more. That's quite a lot of updates in one go, but if you think this means a further major refresh for the MacBook Pro is now several years away, think again.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said he expects only a small performance boost for the 2025 MacBook Pro models with the introduction of new M5 chips, while the "true overhaul" for the laptop will come in 2026. So if you are planning to skip this year's MacBook Pro, or you're just plain curious about what's two generations away, here are the biggest changes rumored to be coming to Apple's premium laptop line next year.
OLED Display
Goodbye, mini-LED
Several rumors have indicated that the first MacBook Pro models with OLED displays will be released in 2026. Research firm Omdia claims Apple is "highly likely" to introduce new MacBook Pros featuring OLED displays next year, while display analyst Ross Young has said that Apple's supply chain is expected to have sufficient notebook-optimized OLED display production capacity in 2026 to bring the technology to MacBook Pro. Compared to current MacBook Pro models that use mini-LED screens, the benefits of OLED technology would include increased brightness, higher contrast ratio with deeper blacks, improved power efficiency for longer battery life, and more.
Thinner, Lighter Laptop
Major Redesign
The switch to OLED displays could allow future MacBook Pro models to have a thinner design, and rumors suggest that is indeed what Apple intends. When the M4 iPad Pro was unveiled in May 2024, Apple touted it as the company's thinnest product ever. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman subsequently called the iPad Pro the "beginning of a new class of Apple devices," and said Apple was working to make the MacBook Pro thinner over the "next couple of years." Apple is reportedly focusing on delivering the thinnest possible device without compromising on battery life or major new features.
Notably, the MacBook Pro got thicker and heavier with its most recent redesign in 2021. A major highlight was the reintroduction of several ports that were removed in previous iterations in favor of chassis thinness. How Apple will make its 2026 MacBook Pro thinner without removing the functionality it reintroduced fairly recently is the big question.
Punch-Hole Camera
No More Notch
If you are fed up of the notch intruding on your Mac display, here's some good news. Apple plans to remove the notch from the MacBook Pro in 2026, according to a roadmap shared by research firm Omdia. The roadmap indicates that 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models released next year will have a hole-punch camera at the top of the display, rather than the notch we've become accustomed to. A MacBook Pro without a notch would offer additional visible pixels on the screen, creating a more uninterrupted and cohesive display design.
5G Modem
Cellular Connectivity
Early in 2025, Apple plans to introduce the custom-built 5G chip that it's had in the works for years now. The modem chip will be added to the iPhone SE, low-cost iPad, and iPhone 17 "Air," giving Apple an opportunity to test the technology before rolling it out to flagship devices. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple will then consider bringing cellular connectivity to the Mac lineup for the first time. The company is said to be "investigating" the possibility of adding a second-generation modem chip to a future Mac as soon as 2026, teasing the potential for a cellular MacBook Pro in the same year. The first Apple modem chip will be limited to sub-6GHz 5G speeds, but the second-generation version will support faster mmWave technology, according to Gurman.
M6 Series Chip
2nm Process
Assuming Apple follows a similar timeframe to its M4 chip rollout, Apple will update the MacBook Pro lineup in October this year with M5 series chips. The chips will be manufactured with TSMC's third-generation 3nm process, known as N3P, resulting in typical year-over-year performance and power efficiency improvements compared to the M4 series of chips. M6 chips, on the other hand, could adopt a completely new packaging process for Apple's 2026 MacBook Pro models.
According to one rumor, Apple's A20 chip in next year's iPhone 18 models will switch from the previous InFo (Integrated Fan-Out) packaging to WMCM (Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module) packaging. WMCM integrates multiple chips within the same package, allowing for the development of more complex chipsets. Components such as the CPU, GPUs, DRAM, and Neural Engine would therefore be more tightly integrated. While we don't know for sure, this could see Apple develop the M6 using the 2nm process while taking advantage of WMCM packaging to make even more powerful versions of its custom processor.
Article Link: Waiting for the Perfect MacBook Pro? 2026 Might Be the Year
Would really, really like a MacBook Pro with a built-in cell modem. Very strange that Apple can offer this in their tablets and cell phones, but it would be an “innovation” for them to offer it in a laptop. (Same could be said for a touch-screen on a Mac.)
Based on the tests that we have done in our area, have seen lots of cases where speeds are very good, as in almost a gigabit per second. In almost every case, the cell speeds are faster, often much faster, than public WiFi. And fewer security issues.
But do we want to wait till 2026, given that one can buy a Windoze Pee Cee, that does this today? (not many, but some).
And does one want to pay the huge extra Apple tax? Getting 8TB of storage added to a MacBook Pro costs about 4x the retail price of such sticks for PCs. Apple’s gross profit margins really are gross.
Cellular Connectivity
Would really, really like a MacBook Pro with a built-in cell modem. Very strange that Apple can offer this in their tablets and cell phones, but it would be an “innovation” for them to offer it in a laptop. (Same could be said for a touch-screen on a Mac.)
Based on the tests that we have done in our area, have seen lots of cases where speeds are very good, as in almost a gigabit per second. In almost every case, the cell speeds are faster, often much faster, than public WiFi. And fewer security issues.
But do we want to wait till 2026, given that one can buy a Windoze Pee Cee, that does this today? (not many, but some).
And does one want to pay the huge extra Apple tax? Getting 8TB of storage added to a MacBook Pro costs about 4x the retail price of such sticks for PCs. Apple’s gross profit margins really are gross.
Would really, really like a MacBook Pro with a built-in cell modem. Very strange that Apple can offer this in their tablets and cell phones, but it would be an “innovation” for them to offer it in a laptop. (Same could be said for a touch-screen on a Mac.)
Based on the tests that we have done in our area, have seen lots of cases where speeds are very good, as in almost a gigabit per second. In almost every case, the cell speeds are faster, often much faster, than public WiFi. And fewer security issues.
But do we want to wait till 2026, given that one can buy a Windoze Pee Cee, that does this today? (not many, but some).
And does one want to pay the huge extra Apple tax? Getting 8TB of storage added to a MacBook Pro costs about 4x the retail price of such sticks for PCs. Apple’s gross profit margins really are gross.
100% agree. I don't think I've used the webcam on any Mac I've ever had. Also, I have menubar items that cover 3/4 of the width of my machine, so I had to change the resolution of my MBP to stop using the top 40 lines of the screen to get rid of the damned notch.
MiniLED is superior in that it will not be nearly as prone to burn in nor the shortened lifespan of organic LED (OLED). As a display technology, most miniLEDs are vastly inferior to OLED and only a few, very expensive, models come close (the display in the MBPro, for example). MicroLED is the future tech that holds out hope of matching, or even exceeding, OLED in display quality while removing the two gotchas I mentioned earlier. We seem to be quite far away from that happening, however.
The main difference between miniLED and OLED/microLED? Per pixel lighting. Mini doesn’t have it (it has zones of light control, typically in the hundreds) OLED/microLED have it (a 4K panel has just over 8 million). Motion control also functions differently between them. It’s a very deep dive…
Tl;dr - no, miniLED is not as good as OLED even if it can come very close.
How about some truly innovative changes, like upgradeable memory and internal storage? Much more useful than making the whole thing 0.0005mm thinner or 0.25 grams lighter, or selling me a display which exceeds human vision even more than it already does.
The only reason I’ll upgrade my MacBook Pro M1 is faster performance, but being able to add internal storage and memory would be very appealing.
The only reason I’ll upgrade my MacBook Pro M1 is faster performance, but being able to add internal storage and memory would be very appealing.
With the supply chain as complex and fragile to trade wars as it is… we should be happy if Apple can barely maintain production of current products (and without too much inflation).
i need this now. get rid of hdmi to make it thinner. rarely used. cellular is nice. why not offer it. as thin as macbook air. next gen air can be as thin as ipad pro. ditch the notch. perfection attained.
also that black keyboard well is ugly too.
urrent macbook air is best design. just needs better display and sound.
also that black keyboard well is ugly too.
urrent macbook air is best design. just needs better display and sound.