This week Apple launched two new MacBook Pros. On 27 October it announced a 14-inch MacBook Pro with its new M6 chip, starting at £1,999. A day later it announced the one it really wanted you to talk about: the MacBook Pro with a touchscreen “PROLED XDR” display, starting at £2,899 and climbing to £4,799.
Let us be blunt. Two thousand pounds for an entry-level laptop is too much. Nearly three thousand pounds so that you can poke the screen is ridiculous. And Apple knows it.
Two years on, what has actually changed?
The laptop this article is being written on is a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip, bought new about two years ago. So we put it side by side with Apple’s brand new £1,999 entry-level model, using the figures from Apple’s own specification page.
| Our two-year-old MacBook Pro | New entry-level MacBook Pro (Oct 2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Screen size | 14.2-inch | 14.2-inch |
| Screen resolution | 3024 x 1964 | 3024 x 1964 |
| Screen type | Liquid Retina XDR | Liquid Retina XDR |
| Memory | 24GB | 16GB |
| Storage | 1TB | 1TB |
| Processor cores | 14 | 12 |
| Graphics cores | 20 | 12 |
| Starting price | £1,999 |
Same size. Same screen. Same resolution. Same storage. And the new one comes with less memory.
To be fair to Apple, the M6 chip is newer, and Apple says it is faster in some tasks than the chip it replaces. But look closely at Apple’s own press release. It compares the new model with last year’s M5 and with the M1 from 2020. It does not compare it with the M4 machines that many businesses bought two years ago. We can guess why.
For most people running a business, the work done on a laptop is email, Microsoft 365, a browser, video calls and a line-of-business system. A two-year-old MacBook Pro does every one of those things brilliantly. Nothing in this new model gives a business owner a reason to spend another two thousand pounds.
And then there is the touchscreen
For more than fifteen years Apple told us touchscreens did not belong on laptops. Steve Jobs famously dismissed touchscreen laptops in 2010 as “ergonomically terrible”. Mac owners were told, launch after launch, that Apple knew best.
Now Apple has discovered touchscreens, and it wants you to pay handsomely for the privilege.
Here is what the touchscreen costs you, using Apple’s own UK prices:
- 14-inch MacBook Pro, no touchscreen: from £1,999
- 14-inch MacBook Pro with touchscreen: from £2,899
- 16-inch MacBook Pro with touchscreen: from £3,399
- Top touchscreen models: £4,499 and £4,799
That is £900 extra on the 14-inch, just to get the touchscreen. For £900 you could buy a perfectly good business laptop outright. Plenty of Windows laptops have had touchscreens for over a decade, at a fraction of that price.
It gets better. The £1,999 model has Apple’s new M6 chip. The £2,899 touchscreen model does not. It uses the M5 Pro, from the previous generation. So you pay nearly a thousand pounds more, and you get last year’s chip family.
£3,000 for a laptop is not normal
Somewhere along the way, the technology industry decided that £3,000 for a laptop was acceptable. It is not.
Prices like these are only possible because companies like Apple have trained their customers to expect them. Each year the price creeps up, a new feature is held back for the most expensive model, and the old model is quietly made to feel out of date. The touchscreen did not need to cost £900. Apple charges £900 because it thinks you will pay it.
For a small business, that matters. A team of five on touchscreen MacBook Pros is more than £14,000 before you have bought a single accessory, warranty or software licence. That is a member of staff for several months. It is a new server, a proper backup system and a year of cyber security, with change left over.
What we tell our clients
We support businesses across Leeds and the rest of the UK on both Mac and Windows, and our advice is simple.
- If your Mac is two or three years old and works, keep it. Apple Silicon Macs from 2021 onwards are still excellent for business work. A new one will not make your email faster.
- Buy for the job, not the advert. Most office staff do not need a MacBook Pro at all. A MacBook Air, or a good Windows business laptop, will do the same work for far less.
- Spend the difference where it counts. The money saved buys backup, security, support and staff training. Those protect your business. A touchscreen does not.
- Ignore the launch hype. Wait for the reviews and the discounts. A laptop that is £900 cheaper in six months is the same laptop.
If you are thinking of replacing your company’s laptops and want an honest opinion before you spend, call us on 0113 8000 192. We will tell you whether you need to buy anything at all.
Our view
Apple makes very good computers. We use them ourselves. That is exactly why this launch is so disappointing. A two-year-old MacBook Pro is still more than enough for almost any business, and Apple’s answer is to charge more for less memory, and nearly a thousand pounds extra for a feature it spent fifteen years telling us we did not want.
£3,000 for a laptop in 2026 is not innovation. It is a joke, and the customer is the punchline.
Prices and specifications are from Apple’s UK website and press releases of 27 and 28 October 2026 and are correct as at 29 October 2026. Apple, MacBook Pro and the Apple logo are trade marks of Apple Inc. QLine IT is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Apple. This article is our opinion.
