MacBook Pro M6 vs touchscreen MacBook Pro: which to buy

Quick pick: the whole MacBook range in one table

At the end of 2026 Apple sells five tiers of MacBook. Neo is the cheapest, built for the browser and schoolwork. Air is the computer for most people. The Pro with M6 is the most affordable Pro. The M5 Pro and M5 Max models are workstations, and the touchscreen version with the same chips is the top of the line.

The price level reflects Estonian shop offers on hinnavaatlus.ee on 13 November 2026, rounded. Where it says «from», it is the level of the lowest offers; elsewhere it is the median. The current price is always on the product page.

All laptops on one page — choose Apple as the brand and filter by memory and display.Laptops →

MacBook Pro 14 M6: what is new compared with M5

M6 is Apple's first computer chip built on a 2-nanometre process. In the MacBook Pro it has a 12-core CPU (2 super cores, 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores) and a 12-core GPU — two more cores than M5 in each. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 were added. Everything else is unchanged: the body, the display, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, an SD card slot and MagSafe.

Against M5, Apple promises up to 30% faster graphics and up to 25% faster AI workloads; building an Xcode project and rendering in Blender are up to 1.3 times faster in the maker's tests. Independent tests are more modest: Engadget measured 4,458 and 19,077 points in Geekbench 6 (M5: 4,310 and 18,003), and Ars Technica found a CPU gain of about 7% single-core and 15% multi-core. The gap is bigger in graphics than in the CPU.

Two things are worth knowing before you buy. First, in Europe there is no charger in the box — only a USB-C to MagSafe 3 cable. Fast charging (50% in half an hour) needs an adapter of at least 96 W. Second, there is no 16-inch model with M6: a bigger screen still means an M5 Pro or M5 Max chip.

The touchscreen MacBook Pro: what PROLED XDR is

PROLED XDR is a tandem OLED display: two layers of self-emitting pixels stacked on top of each other. The result is up to 2000 nits of brightness for both HDR and standard content, a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio and black that is truly black — there is no halo around bright objects as on mini-LED. The display covers the P3 and Adobe RGB colour spaces, and the refresh rate adapts between 10 and 120 Hz.

The body changed along with the display: the 14-inch is nearly half a millimetre thinner and weighs 1.38 kg, the 16-inch nearly a millimetre thinner at 1.82 kg. Apple redesigned the hinge so the screen wobbles less when touched, and fitted new woofers. The M5 Pro and M5 Max models with a mini-LED display stay on sale — the new model sits alongside them rather than replacing them.

What touch does and does not do

• Works straight awayScrolling, pinch to zoom, drag and drop, double-tap to make a window fill the screen. Existing apps work without an update because macOS translates a touch into a click.
• Where it really helpsZooming and moving a photo, scrubbing the timeline in Final Cut Pro, the keyboard and drum pads in Logic Pro, and testing iPhone and iPad apps as a developer.
• What is missingApple Pencil does not work. No on-screen keyboard appears when you tap a text field. It is not an iPad or a drawing tablet — macOS is still a mouse-and-keyboard system.
• What the first reviewers sayThe Verge counted about half a dozen taps a day and recommends the laptop for its display, not for touch. Macworld found touch smooth and lag-free, but the screen picks up fingerprints.

Why the touchscreen model has M5 Pro, not M6

The number in a chip's name marks the generation, not the power. M6 is the base chip of the new generation; Apple has not yet introduced an M6 Pro or M6 Max. That is why the top of the line is still M5 Pro and M5 Max, which arrived in March 2026. In multi-core performance, graphics and memory capacity they are clearly ahead of M6.

In practice, M6 is the fastest in single-core work — on the web, in office software and when compiling code it feels as quick as the more expensive chips. M5 Pro and M5 Max win where the job spreads across many cores and the GPU or needs a lot of memory: long video exports, 3D rendering, large language models.

Should you replace an M3, M4 or M5 MacBook

The short answer: not if your current Mac has an M4 or M5 chip. The first reviewers reach the same conclusion. The biggest gain goes to people replacing an Intel or M1 machine: according to Apple, M6 is up to 11 times faster in graphics and up to 13 times faster in AI workloads than the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1, and the battery lasts up to four hours longer.

For someone buying new, the question is different: M6 or a cheaper M5. In Estonian shops the gap between the 14-inch M5 and M6 with the same memory and storage is about €200. That buys two more cores, faster graphics and Wi-Fi 7. If the computer has to last five or six years, M6 is the more sensible choice; if the budget is the limit, M5 is not a bad buy.

How much memory and SSD to get

You cannot replace the memory or storage in a MacBook later — both are soldered to the logic board. Choose enough to last the life of the computer. With M6 there is an extra reason to pick 24 GB: the faster memory bandwidth (170 GB/s) comes only with the 24 and 32 GB versions.

Every MacBook Pro now starts with 1 TB of storage, the Air with 512 GB and the Neo with 256 GB. Large project files are better kept on an external SSD — over Thunderbolt it is almost as fast as the internal drive and many times cheaper than Apple's storage upgrade.

In Estonia: availability, keyboard and price level

Apple has no store of its own in Estonia; Macs arrive through resellers. Both new models have been on sale in the European Union since 6 November, and as of 13 November about ten Estonian shops offer them. Our range has the MacBook Pro 14 M6 in four versions (16 or 24 GB, silver or black); the touchscreen model was not in our stock at the time of writing.

US prices exclude sales tax; German (19%) and Finnish (25.5%) prices include VAT; Estonian VAT is 24%. In Germany the 16-inch PROLED XDR costs €500 more than the mini-LED model with the same chip (€3,899 vs €3,399).

Keyboard: Estonian shops sell MacBooks mainly with three layouts — INT (international English), SWE (Swedish/Finnish, with Ä and Ö on their own keys) and RUS (Russian letters on the keys). The layout is stated in the product name. SWE is the most comfortable for Estonian letters; INT suits people who mostly write English or code.

Laptops with a Nordic keyboard — Ö and Ä in the right place.Laptops with a Nordic keyboard →

Hire-purchase terms, the interest-free period and a worked example.Pay in instalments →

Mac or Windows for work

• Choose a Mac ifyou work in Apple software (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Xcode), want long battery life and a quiet computer, and already own an iPhone.
• Choose Windows ifyour employer's software, accounting program or games need Windows, or you want replaceable memory and a wide choice of ports.
• Pricein the same price class a Windows business laptop gives you more memory and storage, a Mac longer battery life and a better display.

Windows laptops: processor generations and ThinkPad T14 vs T14s vs X1 Carbon vs Dell Pro 14.Best laptop 2026 →

14-inch laptops on one page.14-inch laptops →

Thunderbolt and USB-C docks: one cable for the monitor, network and charging.Docking stations →

A bigger screen for the desk: USB-C monitors that also charge the laptop.Monitors →

Verdict: which MacBook to buy

For most people who want a MacBook Pro we recommend the 14-inch M6 with 24 GB of memory: it is the most affordable model in the line, lasts longest away from a socket, and the 24 GB version also gets the faster memory. The touchscreen MacBook Pro is the best laptop Apple has made, but the extra money buys the display and the lighter body, not touch — the first tests confirm that too.

If you do not need the Pro ports and the 120 Hz display, the MacBook Air M5 is the more sensible purchase and leaves more than a thousand euros in your pocket. An owner of an M4 or M5 MacBook Pro has no reason to switch. And if you are choosing by screen size alone, remember: there is no 16-inch M6 model.