Touchscreen MacBook Pro or M6 Model? How Friday's Macs Compare

$900 is what separates the two 14 inch MacBook Pro models arriving in stores this Friday, November 6. On one side sits the new touchscreen MacBook Pro, with a tandem OLED panel Apple calls PROLED XDR, starting at $2,899. On the other is the 14 inch MacBook Pro with the new M6 chip at $1,999, which keeps a Liquid Retina XDR screen and skips touch.

Both opened for preorder in late October, according to Apple's newsroom, and both launch on the same day as a new iMac and an OLED iPad mini. MacRumors counts five new products in all hitting shelves on Friday. Here is how the two laptops differ, and who should pick which.

Five Apple products share one release day

• iPad mini with OLED and A20 Pro: from $699 for Wi-Fi, $849 with cellular
• iMac with M6: from $1,499
• 14 inch MacBook Pro with M6: from $1,999
• 14 inch MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR and touch: from $2,899 with M5 Pro, $4,499 with M5 Max
• 16 inch MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR and touch: from $3,399 with M5 Pro, $4,799 with M5 Max

The screen is where the extra $900 goes

14 inch MacBook Pro with M6

Apple lists a Liquid Retina XDR display with up to 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, plus an optional nano texture finish. It is a strong screen for most work, and it works the way every Mac screen has so far: you point and click, you do not tap.

Touchscreen MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR

The new panel measures 14.2 or 16.3 inches and reaches up to 2,000 nits in both HDR and SDR, with a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio and ProMotion refresh from 10Hz to 120Hz. Touch is built into the display panel itself, which Apple describes as a first for the Mac, and the screen also gains a Dynamic Island. The 14 inch model weighs 3 pounds and the 16 inch model 4 pounds.

Chips, memory and ports split the two further

What the M6 model brings

The cheaper laptop runs Apple's newest base chip, the M6, with a 12 core CPU and 12 core GPU, Neural Accelerators in each GPU core and a Dual 16 core Neural Engine. It ships with 16GB of unified memory, configurable to 32GB, and memory bandwidth of up to 170GB/s, according to Apple's M6 MacBook Pro release. Ports include three Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, MagSafe 3, an SDXC slot and a headphone jack, and it drives up to two external displays. Apple rates battery life at up to 24 hours.

What the PROLED models bring

The touchscreen machines use the M5 Pro or M5 Max instead, older by name but larger chips built for heavier workloads. They support up to 128GB of unified memory and up to 16TB of storage, and they move to three Thunderbolt 5 ports alongside HDMI, SDXC, MagSafe and a headphone jack. The M5 Pro handles up to three external displays and the M5 Max up to four. Apple also quotes up to 24 hours of battery life here.

If you need a desktop with even more memory, our look at the Mac Studio's 512GB option shows where Apple's ceiling sits right now.

Friday delivery is not guaranteed for every model

Apple says all five products are available starting November 6. When MacRumors checked on November 2, most configurations still showed launch day delivery. The exception was the base 14 inch touchscreen MacBook Pro, which showed 3 to 4 weeks in space black and 7 to 10 business days in silver. Store pickup may move faster, so check your local Apple Store before you settle for a later ship date.

Which buyer should take which Mac

• Students, writers and office workers: the M6 model at $1,999, or $1,899 with education savings, covers everyday work and keeps the battery life of the pricier machines.
• Photo and video editors: the PROLED panel's brightness and contrast are the main reason to pay more, and the M5 Pro gives you room to grow.
• Multi monitor setups and huge projects: the M5 Max versions, with up to four external displays and 128GB of memory, are the only laptops here built for that.
• Anyone curious about touch: try it in a store first. A touchscreen laptop is a new habit, much like the shift we covered in whether foldable phones are worth it, and not everyone ends up using it.
• People who never move their computer: the M6 iMac starts at $1,499 with a 24 inch 4.5K display, and the OLED iPad mini at $699 is the cheapest way into Friday's launch.

One last tip before you buy. Price your current device first, because trade in quotes and resale payouts can differ by a lot, as our breakdown of fees and payouts for selling an old iPhone showed. More launch coverage lives in our gadgets section.