Apple's redesigned 16-inch MacBook Pro is now the most expensive laptop the company has ever shipped. Configured to the maximum, with a 16TB SSD and 128GB of unified memory, it lists at $14,549 on Apple's online store, as first reported by Engadget.
The redesigned model, announced on October 28 with a PROLED XDR touchscreen, is not what drives the price. Buying the same machine without the touch display, with the same chip and storage, would cost $10,549. Accessories and components account for the rest.
MacBook Pro 16-inch specs and pricing
Storage and memory alone make up roughly 62 percent of the top configuration, about $9,000 of the $14,549 total. Apple charges $7,000 just to go from 8TB to 16TB, a first for the MacBook Pro line, since the M5 Max models released in March stopped at 8TB.
Memory has its own rules. Only the 40-core M5 Max can be configured with 128GB of RAM, while the 32-core version is fixed at 36GB and the M5 Pro stops at 64GB. Apple says the M5 Max, with 614GB/s of memory bandwidth, can run large language models locally, and that is where the extra RAM earns its keep, since a local model has to fit in memory and the GPU draws from the same pool as the CPU.
- 16-inch M5 Max: 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 48GB memory, 2TB SSD from $5,399
- Memory upgrade: 48GB to 128GB adds $2,000, and only the 40-core M5 Max can take 128GB
- Storage: $1,000 for 4TB, $3,000 for 8TB, $7,000 for 16TB, or roughly $500 per extra terabyte
- Nano-texture glass: $150, the cheapest upgrade on the list
- Display: 16.3-inch tandem OLED, up to 1,000 nits sustained and 2,000 nits peak, 120Hz, with a Dynamic Island
- 14-inch model: tops out at $14,249; the cheapest route to 16TB is a 14-inch M5 Max with 36GB of memory at $11,499
