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| New Apple MacBook Pro 14 and 16 feature touch sensitive OLED displays |
Apple’s Tandem OLED panel is stunning on paper — but is the new touchscreen actually useful? One of YouTube’s most trusted reviewers isn’t so sure.
Apple has finally lifted the lid on its highly anticipated MacBook Pro 14 and MacBook Pro 16, and the headline feature is impossible to miss: the new PROLED XDR display, a Tandem OLED panel that pushes peak brightness to a staggering 2,000 nits. But while Apple is busy celebrating its brightest laptop screen yet, veteran tech reviewer Dave2D is asking a far more uncomfortable question — is the touchscreen actually worth it?
The PROLED XDR Display: Bright, Beautiful, but Not Perfect
There’s no denying the engineering behind Apple’s latest panel. The PROLED XDR display represents a genuine leap forward for the MacBook Pro line, delivering the kind of contrast and vibrancy that OLED fans have been begging Apple to adopt for years. The 2,000-nit peak brightness figure is particularly impressive, especially for creative professionals who regularly work in bright environments or need HDR accuracy for video editing.
But according to Dave2D’s latest first-impressions video (which you can watch in full below), the story gets complicated the moment you actually touch the screen.
👉 Watch Dave2D’s full MacBook Pro first impressions here
Touch Support Arrives — But Is It Actually Useful?
For the first time ever, Apple has brought touch input to the MacBook Pro. The company claims macOS has been specifically optimized for multi-touch input, complete with animation tweaks and UI adjustments designed to make touch navigation feel natural.
Dave2D largely agrees that Apple has done its homework on the software side. The macOS interface, he notes, feels surprisingly responsive to touch gestures, and the animations have clearly been reworked to accommodate finger-based navigation.
The problem, however, isn’t whether touch works — it’s whether touch is actually better than the tools we already have.
In his video, Dave2D uses video editing as a prime example. Nearly every task you might want to perform with a finger can be accomplished faster and more precisely with a traditional mouse or trackpad. For professional workflows, reaching up to poke at a laptop screen isn’t just unnecessary — it’s slower.
It’s a fair criticism, and one that echoes a broader debate in the laptop industry. Microsoft has spent years refining touch on Windows, yet even there, the feature remains a nice-to-have rather than a must-have for most users.
Fingerprints: The Unavoidable Trade-Off
Then there’s the fingerprint problem — the unglamorous reality of any touchscreen laptop.
The new MacBook Pro 14 and 16 will be available with both glossy and nano-texture display finishes. While the glossy option is predictably a magnet for smudges, Dave2D points out that even the nano-texture variant isn’t immune to fingerprint buildup.
To be fair, this is a universal issue with touch-capable laptops, and Dave2D admits the situation is better than he initially expected. Still, it’s worth reserving final judgment until the PROLED XDR panel can be tested under real-world conditions over an extended period.
Where Touch Actually Makes a Difference
Despite his skepticism, Dave2D does acknowledge genuine use cases where touch input shines.
Developers working on mobile apps, for instance, can now directly test UI functionality on a touch-enabled PROLED XDR display without needing a separate device. That’s a real workflow improvement for a specific segment of users — even if it doesn’t move the needle for the average buyer.
The Bigger Picture: A Crowded Premium Laptop Market
Apple’s timing here is interesting. The new MacBook Pro arrives just weeks after Microsoft launched its own premium creative workstation, the Surface Laptop Ultra RTX Spark — a machine that also leans heavily on display credentials.
As our colleagues at LaptopsCheck recently reported, Microsoft’s $4,299 flagship packs a 15-inch Mini-LED panel that hits over 2,000 nits of peak HDR brightness — yet lacks local dimming entirely, resulting in washed-out blacks and visible ghosting. It’s a cautionary tale that brightness alone doesn’t guarantee a great display.
That context makes Apple’s PROLED XDR panel all the more intriguing. Tandem OLED technology should, in theory, sidestep the contrast issues that plague Mini-LED implementations without local dimming. Whether Apple has nailed the execution — and whether touch support adds real value — remains to be seen.
The Verdict (So Far)
Dave2D’s takeaway is refreshingly measured: the PROLED XDR display is genuinely impressive, but the touchscreen functionality feels more like a “because we can” feature than a “because you need it” one. For most MacBook Pro buyers, the display upgrade alone may be reason enough to consider an upgrade. The touch input? That’s a bonus, not a selling point.
For those looking to compare options or upgrade their setup, it’s also worth checking out the latest Amazon device deals — you never know when a competitive laptop or accessory might pop up at a discount.
Stay tuned for our full in-depth review of the new MacBook Pro 14 and 16 once retail units become available. Until then, check out Dave2D’s full video for a closer look at the PROLED XDR display in action.
