Apple’s touchscreen MacBook Pro pushes laptop pricing to a new extreme
- ID
- 40602
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 29 Oct 2026, 6:47 AM
- Fetched
- 29 Oct 2026, 7:24 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/28/apples-touchscreen-macbook-pro-pushes-laptop-pricing-to-a-new-extreme/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 4.5
- Created
- 29 Oct 2026, 7:25 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coderssaas_founders
What happened
Apple's first touchscreen MacBook Pro starts at $2,899, but a fully loaded 16-inch model with the M5 Max (18-core CPU, 40-core GPU) configures to $14,549 — $4,400 above the previous 16-inch ceiling of $10,149. The upgrade ladder is where the money goes: +$1,000 for 4TB SSD, +$3,000 for 8TB, +$7,000 for the new 16TB option, +$2,000 for 128GB memory, and +$150 for nano-texture glass. TechCrunch attributes some of the pricing pressure to the ongoing memory shortage and AI's demand for hardware; preorders open October 30 with availability November 6.
Why it matters
The per-tier upgrade prices are the useful signal: $7,000 for 16TB and $2,000 for 128GB tell you what Apple thinks memory and NAND cost right now, which likely bleeds into RAM/SSD pricing for your own builds and cloud instances too. If you were planning to spec a maxed-out local machine for model work or heavy dev containers before the October 30 preorder, price that config against a remote dev box or cloud GPU hours first — the $14,549 top end buys a lot of rented compute.
Discussion angle
Given these upgrade prices, where's your cutoff between buying local RAM/storage and renting it — and has the memory shortage already changed quotes you've gotten for servers or cloud capacity?