Apple's latest MacBook Pro with the new M5 chip has arrived in India, starting at a price of Rs 1,69,900. At first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking nothing has changed. The laptop retains the same aluminium unibody design that debuted in 2021, complete with the familiar notch, ports, and sleek profile. However, power it on, and the story shifts dramatically. The M5 chip promises significant leaps, especially in AI tasks and gaming, placing this machine in a curious middle ground between the affordable MacBook Air and the ultra-powerful M4 Pro/Max models.
Familiar Excellence: A Design That Endures
Four years on, the MacBook Pro's chassis remains a benchmark. The recycled aluminium body feels incredibly solid, with no flex or compromise. The Space Black finish, while sleek, is a fingerprint magnet, making the Silver variant a more practical choice for many. Weighing 1.55kg, it's substantial but portable. The display is the same stellar 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED panel with a sustained 1000 nits brightness, peaking at 1600 nits, making it perfectly viewable in bright conditions. The 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate ensures buttery-smooth scrolling and video scrubbing.
The controversial notch housing the 12MP Center Stage camera persists, though macOS Tahoe's transparent menu bar helps it blend in. An optional upgrade that truly stands out is the nano-texture glass coating, costing an extra Rs 13,000. This etched finish annihilates glare, a boon for those working under harsh lights, though it slightly softens image vibrancy.
The Pro's audio and connectivity continue to outclass the Air. The six-speaker system with force-cancelling woofers delivers rich, bass-heavy sound with spatial audio support. For ports, you get three Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, an SDXC card slot, MagSafe 3, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Notably, Apple has held back Wi-Fi 7 and Thunderbolt 5, features available on its more expensive Pro models and latest iPad, which feels like a deliberate segmentation choice.
The M5 Chip: Where AI and Gaming Get Real
The heart of the update is Apple's M5 system-on-a-chip. It boasts a 10-core CPU (4 performance, 6 efficiency), a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. Apple claims it's roughly 20% faster in multi-threaded tasks than the M4. In daily use—browsing, writing, emails—the difference is negligible. But under professional workloads, the gains are clear.
Exporting photos in Lightroom or rendering video in Final Cut Pro finishes noticeably quicker. The real generational leap is in AI performance. The M5's Neural Accelerators make on-device AI models genuinely usable. Running a local model like Gemma 3 (4B parameters) via tools like Msty is now responsive enough for a flowing conversation, a task that felt sluggish on the M4.
Gaming sees unexpected improvements, aligning with Apple's push into this arena. Cyberpunk 2077 is now playable on the MacBook Pro M5. At medium settings with some compromises, it holds 30fps; at low settings (1080p), it can hit 60fps. While not a dedicated gaming laptop, titles like Hades II run beautifully. Impressively, the laptop stays cool and quiet through this, its single fan rarely becoming obtrusive.
The Verdict: A Niche Master or Compromise?
The MacBook Pro with M5 excels but occupies a specific niche. Its starting price of Rs 1,69,900 is significantly higher than the capable M4 MacBook Air, yet it's the most affordable gateway to the Pro lineup's superior screen, ports, and cooling. For pure power, the M4 Pro and Max models are far ahead.
So, who is this for? It's an ideal machine for creatives, developers, and prosumers whose needs exceed the Air's capabilities but don't justify the cost of the highest-end Pros. If you edit photos, dabble in local AI, enjoy casual gaming, and value the mini-LED display and extra ports, the M5 Pro is a brilliantly balanced, if incrementally updated, workhorse. For everyone else, the MacBook Air offers savings, while the M4 Pro models offer more power for the money. The M5 MacBook Pro doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it perfects a formula that was already outstanding.
