The M6 MacBook Pro is probably the last of its kind
The design is starting to show its age next to the lighter, brighter PROLED model, but the entry-level MacBook Pro is still great.
by Nathan EdwardsNov 5, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC Nathan Edwards is a senior reviews editor who’s been testing tech since 2007. Previously at Wirecutter and Maximum PC. Current fixations: keyboards, DIY tech, and Linux.
On November 6th, Apple will release an all-new MacBook Pro. It’s thinner and lighter and has a beautiful OLED touchscreen. It is very likely what every new MacBook Pro will look like in a couple of years.
The M6 MacBook Pro, which is also out on the 6th, is not that laptop. Instead, it’s a straightforward chip bump of Apple’s entry-level MacBook Pro, in basically the same chassis Apple’s been using since 2021. Everything that was great about the M5 MacBook Pro last year, and the M4 the year before, still applies. The M6 MacBook Pro is still a great all-around computer, and a nice step up from the MacBook Air. Processor, screen, speakers, ports, power, battery life: They’re all a little better than the Air’s. The keyboard and webcam are still solid; the trackpad is still best in class. Inside the laptop, only the processor — which bumps up from a 10-core M5 to a 12-core M6 — and the N1 networking chip are new.
There are just two things complicating what would otherwise be the easiest MacBook review of the year. The first is the starting price: $1,999 with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage — the same price as the base M5 MacBook Pro since September, but up $200 since its launch a year ago. The other is the actually new MacBook Pro: the one with the OLED touchscreen.
Yes, the OLED model is great. Not that someone who’s considering the base MacBook Pro should spend $900 more to get that screen today. But that design is likely to come to the entry MacBook Pro next year. The question is: Should you wait?
8
Verge Score
The Good
- Hardware still excellent all around
- 12-core CPU and GPU in base model
- Great battery life
The Bad
- More expensive, like everything else
- Upgrading RAM puts you close to M5 Pro model
- Likely the last pre-redesign MacBook Pro
The entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro has only existed in its current form for two years. After the 2023 M3 model finally ditched the touchbar and butterfly keys, the M4 model brought it up to par with the “real” Pros, most notably by adding a third Thunderbolt port and bumping the minimum RAM from an embarrassing 8GB to a decent 16GB. The M5 version had a faster chip and double the storage speed, and that was enough to keep it among our favorite laptops. The M6 is yet another chip bump, and it adds Apple’s N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 (and also Thread, for what that’s worth.)
Component report card
- Screen: A
- Webcam: A
- Mic: B
- Keyboard: B
- Touchpad: A
- Port selection: B
- Speakers: A
- Number of ugly stickers to remove: 0
The rest of the hardware is the same as it’s been for two years, which is to say it’s still great. The 14.2-inch miniLED display is bright, beautiful, and color-accurate, with 3092 x 1964 resolution and up to 1,000 nits of brightness in standard mode. The 120Hz adaptive refresh rate (which Apple calls ProMotion) really makes a difference in gaming or even just moving the cursor around. It’s the sort of thing you don’t notice when all your screens are 60Hz, but once you go higher, it’s awfully hard to go back.
Of course, it’s also hard to go back from an OLED screen, like the one on the other new MacBook Pro, once you’ve used one. So it’s a good thing I haven’t used that laptop yet.
The large haptic trackpad remains the best on any laptop, and the keyboard is… still fine. I have never loved Apple’s laptop keyboards, but the keys are large and well-spaced and tolerable for typing on. I’ve used worse. The speakers, on either side of the keyboard deck, are excellent. The “studio-quality three-mic array” is genuinely superb, and noise-canceling is good enough that when I was on a video call using the MacBook’s speakers and mic, my coworker thought I was wearing headphones. That does not happen on my M1 Air.
It still comes in silver and space black. It still has 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an SD card slot, and the MagSafe charging port. Again, coming from an Air, that’s just nice. I love not having to find a card reader to import photos. I love having ports on the right side of the laptop. And I’ll never be mad at a headphone jack.
The webcam is the 12MP Center Stage one Apple’s been using for the past few years, and it’s good enough. If I move around too much during a call, it can take a minute to recenter, but the resolution is good. It’s a huge step up from the one in my M1 MacBook Air.
Battery life is still exceptional. The first day I had the MacBook Pro, I kept it plugged in because I was setting it up and running benchmarks. The second day, I unplugged it at 9:30AM and didn’t plug it back in until noon the next day. That’s over 12 hours of screen-on use, including about three hours of video calls and the usual multitasking. Hard to complain about that!
The M6 chip found in the MacBook Pro is the same 12-core chip in the M6 Mac Mini and iMac, with two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. It’s more than enough power for regular use, up to and including photo editing, the occasional video editing, and light gaming.
All three M6 machines had very similar performance in nearly all our benchmarks. The exceptions were Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and DaVinci Resolve benchmarks, where the 24GB of memory in our Mini review unit gave it a 5 to 10 percent edge over the iMac and this MacBook Pro, both of which have 16GB of memory.
Apple Silicon remains capable as hell. The MacBook Pro handled everything I threw at it, and I rarely heard the fan except during
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