Apple MacBook Pro M5 (14in)

No big changes, but a superb display, chart-topping speed and long battery life are hard to argue with

- MATT HANSON

PRICE From £1,333 (£1,599 inc VAT) from apple.​com/uk

Coming a year after the launch of the M4 MacBook Pro (see issue 364, p50), few people were surprised when Apple announced this year’s update to the M5. The big reveal was instead updates to the iPad Pro (see p84) and the Vision Pro (see p48).

There’s no sign of an M5-powered Mac mini or iMac, nor do we get the more powerful M5 Pro and M5 Max variants of the MacBook Pro. For now, that means no new 16in MacBook Pro, so if you want the most cutting-edge MacBook Pro you only have one size to choose from.

Prices start at £1,599 inc VAT, which buys a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory, and 512GB SSD storage. But no charger: that costs £59 for the 70W version, £79 for 96W. Adding a nano-texture display, which reduces glare and reflections, costs £150, while boosting the memory to 24GB adds £200 and 32GB costs a cough-worthy £400. Want more storage? You'll pay an extra £200 for the step up to 1TB, £600 for 2TB and £1,200 for 4TB. The Apple tax is still punitive.

Same (classy) design

Apple has stuck to an identical design to the M4 model, and the M3 before it. While it remains a well-built and nice-looking laptop, particularly if you choose the Space Black version, it’s disappointing to see no changes at all. That extends to the port selection, with an HDMI output, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack and MagSafe 3 port. It also comes with three USB-C ports, which use Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 with speeds of up to 40Gbits/sec. The M4 Pro and M4 Max 14in MacBook Pros - which are still on sale - offer faster transfer speeds, as their trio of USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 5 and support up to 120Gbits/sec.