MacBook Pro ProLED XDR vs Liquid Retina XDR: Is the $400 Upgrade Worth It?

Apple’s new 14-inch MacBook Pro with ProLED XDR costs $400 more than the MacBook Pro with Liquid Retina XDR it sits beside. After comparing the two side by side, my answer is simple: the display is the only upgrade worth paying for, and most people should save the money.

What’s different

	ProLED XDR	Liquid Retina XDR
Display	Tandem OLED	Mini-LED
Touchscreen	Yes	No
Top of the screen	Dynamic Island	Notch
Weight	3 pounds	3.5 pounds
Apple logo	Lights up	Doesn’t
Speakers	Redesigned	Louder, fuller to me
Chips	M5 Pro or M5 Max	M5 Pro or M5 Max
Price	$400 more	$400 less

Everything else is the same: the ports, the battery life, and the keyboard that still turns shiny after a couple of months.

The display is the real upgrade

The ProLED XDR stacks two OLED layers, so it gets brighter without pushing either layer as hard. In HDR movies like Project Hail Mary, it looks a little brighter and more vibrant, with perfect blacks and no blooming. Dimming-zone tests make the difference obvious: the Liquid Retina XDR’s mini-LED zones glow around bright objects, and the OLED shows none of that. Motion looks a little cleaner too, even though both run at 120 Hz.

In everyday work, though, I could barely tell them apart. Safari, documents and macOS look sharp, bright and colorful on both. If you watch or edit a lot of HDR video, or simply want the best screen Apple makes, the premium makes sense. Otherwise you won’t notice it day to day.

The other changes don’t add much

• Weight: half a pound lighter, and it feels like a MacBook Air in your hands. But the footprint is the same, so it’s no more portable on a lap, a tray table or in a backpack.
• Touchscreen: scrolling, pinching and swiping all work, and a Mac should have touch. It’s not precise enough to replace the trackpad, and small controls like a window’s close button take two taps: one to enlarge it, one to press it. The screen wobbles no more than any other touchscreen laptop, or an iPad Pro on a Magic Keyboard.
• Dynamic Island: nicer than the notch, with Live Activities like the iPhone. But all four corners are now rounded with a wide radius, pushing content inward for no good reason.
• Light-up logo: fun and nostalgic, and its brightness follows the screen’s.

The speakers are a step back

Apple says the redesigned six-speaker system has 50% deeper bass. Side by side, I heard a sound tilted toward lower frequencies but not much more bass, and the Liquid Retina XDR model sounded a little louder and fuller. Both are excellent, but I prefer the older ones. My guess is the smaller body left less room for the speakers.

Performance is identical

Both use the same M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, so they perform exactly the same, even though the ProLED XDR model arrived eight months later. It was reportedly meant to get M6 chips before Apple shifted its focus to M7. If you already own an M5 Pro or M5 Max MacBook Pro, upgrading won’t feel any faster.

Which should you buy?

• Get the ProLED XDR if you’re buying a new MacBook anyway and want the best display Apple offers. That’s what the $400 pays for; touch, the Dynamic Island and the lighter body are nice extras, not reasons to buy.
• Get the Liquid Retina XDR for everything else. You still get an excellent display and essentially the same computer.

I bought my M5 Pro MacBook Pro with Liquid Retina XDR eight months ago, and I’ll admit a little jealousy. But I’m not upgrading.

Moving to a new Mac? See my video on transferring all your data.

Links

• MacBook Pro with ProLED XDR
• MacBook Pro with Liquid Retina XDR
• How to Migrate to a new Mac

In this video

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:38 Design and Weight
• 1:23 Front Glass and Light Up Logo
• 1:51 Ports and Keyboard
• 2:12 ProLED XDR vs Liquid Retina XDR Display
• 2:44 HDR and Dimming Zone Test
• 3:54 Touchscreen on a Mac
• 4:51 Screen Wobble
• 5:15 Dynamic Island and Rounded Corners
• 5:35 Speakers
• 6:26 M5 Pro and M5 Max Performance
• 7:08 Is It Worth $400 More?