There’s an electric buzz running through the Apple world right now. In just one week, rumors say, Apple could announce a brand-new MacBook, and if the reports are accurate, it will be the most dramatic shake-up the lineup has seen in years: a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen and OLED display. That’s a genuinely exciting prospect if you like the idea of swiping, tapping, and drawing directly on your laptop’s screen, and no doubt a lot of people are already holding their breath. But let’s be honest for a second—new model announcements are often the perfect moment to grab the outgoing hardware at a price that makes you feel like you got away with something. That’s exactly what’s happening right now with the M5 Max MacBook Pro. Apple actually raised prices across the entire MacBook lineup back in June, which makes any discount worth paying attention to. So when you see the 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro with 36GB of RAM and 2TB of storage sitting at $3,499, that’s a serious deal. That’s 20 percent off the retail price, and it’s $400 less than what it cost just a few days ago. Historical context makes it even sweeter: this configuration has never sold for anywhere near this low—ever. You’re looking at $150 less than the previous best price we’ve ever tracked, which means this isn’t just a mild discount. It’s the kind of clearance-worthy moment that doesn’t come around often. If you’ve been telling yourself you’d buy a professional-grade MacBook when the time was right, the time just knocked on your door. The new model might be tempting, and the touchscreen OLED rumors are definitely exciting, but the current one is undeniably excellent, and when you’re saving hundreds of dollars, excellent is more than enough.
Let’s talk about what you’re actually getting for that money, because this isn’t just a slightly faster laptop. The M5 Max is a monster, and by all accounts it’s a huge leap over both the M4 Max and the M5 Pro. We’re talking about GPU performance that Apple has never been able to put inside a MacBook before, and that changes what people can actually do on the go. For content creators, media professionals, engineers, and AI enthusiasts, this is nearly as good as it gets in a portable machine. Video editors can throw multiple high-resolution streams at it without breaking a sweat. 3D artists can render complex scenes during a coffee break. Engineers can run simulations that would have required a desktop workstation a few years ago. And perhaps most surprising of all, gaming on a Mac has finally become genuinely exciting. In my testing, Cyberpunk 2077—one of the most demanding games ever made—ran at an average of over 60 frames per second on the Ultra preset, and it did it without relying on upscaling tricks or lowering the resolution to hit playable framerates. That’s the kind of raw graphics power that makes you stop and think, “Wait, this is a MacBook?” It’s an incredibly capable creative tool, and if you do any kind of work that’s bottlenecked by performance, this machine will feel like a serious upgrade. There are faster laptops out there, sure, but not many, and almost none of them offer this combination of speed, portability, battery life, and build quality. The bottom line is that the M5 Max is the kind of processor that makes you feel like you’re cheating, because it handles tasks that used to require time and patience in seconds.
Now, if you’re someone who really wants to get serious about on-device AI, you might be thinking about the higher-end configurations. And look, I get it—AI is the buzzword of the moment, and the M5 Max can absolutely handle local machine learning tasks with impressive speed. But there’s a catch: if you want the 64GB or 128GB versions of this machine, you’re not going to find them at third-party retailers like Amazon. Those models are only available directly from Apple, and the prices quickly become eye-watering. Apple charges a serious premium for the extra memory, and while those configurations are absolutely fantastic for running large language models, training custom models, or handling massive datasets, they’re not the practical choice for most people. The 36GB model that’s on sale right now is actually a sweet spot. It has more than enough memory to dip your toe into the world of on-device AI, whether that means running local models, experimenting with image generation, or just taking advantage of the neural engine in everyday workflows. And for the more traditional creative crowd—video editors, graphic designers, musicians, and engineers—36GB is plenty for the vast majority of real-world projects. You can build a massive Logic session with tons of plugins, edit 4K multicam footage in Final Cut Pro, juggle dozens of layers in Photoshop, and still have memory left over for a hundred browser tabs. The 36GB model is a home run for anyone who needs serious power without wanting to take out a second mortgage. It’s powerful enough to feel future-proof for years, but priced reasonably enough that you won’t regret not jumping to the stratospheric tiers.
Beyond raw performance, though, there’s a lot to love about this MacBook Pro that has nothing to do with benchmarks. It goes without saying at this point that all MacBook Pros have some of the best speakers, displays, build quality, trackpads, and keyboards of just about any laptop you can buy, and this generation is no exception. The display is stunning—perfect for color-grading video, editing photos, or just watching a movie at the end of the day. The speakers fill a room in a way that still feels impossible for a laptop, with rich bass and clear highs that make you forget you’re not listening to external monitors. The keyboard is comfortable and precise, the trackpad is the best in the industry by a wide margin, and the chassis feels like a solid block of premium machinery. I test dozens of new laptops every year, from Windows ultrabooks to Chromebooks to flashy convertibles, and while some come close—the Surface Laptop Ultra I just finished testing is genuinely impressive, for instance—none have actually taken the crown from the MacBook Pro. This is the laptop that other laptops are compared to, and it’s still the one I’d recommend to anyone who wants a premium daily driver that also happens to be a performance beast. You’re not just buying a fast CPU; you’re buying an entire experience. You’re buying a machine that feels great to carry, sounds better than your Bluetooth speaker, and never leaves you hunting for an adapter. It’s the kind of laptop that makes you want to open it up and work, which is more valuable than a lot of specs suggest.
So the big question remains: should you wait and see what Apple announces next week? Maybe. I’m not going to pretend I know the future. I can’t guarantee that this deal will stick around forever, and I definitely don’t know exactly what the new MacBooks will be like until they’re officially announced. Rumors suggest that the new models will sport the same chip options as the current MacBook Pros, which means we’d likely see an M5 Pro and an M5 Max once again. If that turns out to be true, then the performance difference between this year’s model and next week’s model might be smaller than you think. The major draw of the new machine would be the screen technology and the touch capability, which are genuinely new features. But if you don’t care about touchscreens on a laptop, and if you’re not deeply attached to OLED displays, then spending less money on this fantastic M5 Max machine is a very rational move. There’s always going to be something new on the horizon—that’s just how technology works. If you keep waiting for the next best thing, you’ll be waiting forever, and you’ll end up paying full price for a machine that will eventually be replaced by something even newer anyway. The current MacBook Pro isn’t obsolete because a new rumor is floating around; it’s still one of the most powerful and well-built laptops money can buy. If you’re mostly interested in performance, and if you value saving serious cash, the M5 Max deal is the smarter play.
So here’s my take: if you’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to upgrade your laptop, this is probably it. The rumored new MacBooks are exciting, and if you absolutely must have a touchscreen or an OLED panel, it might be worth waiting a few more days to see what’s announced. But for everyone else—creators, developers, engineers, students who want a machine that will last through years of heavy use, or anyone who just appreciates having more power than they need—the 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro at $3,499 is a phenomenal deal. It’s the kind of price drop that doesn’t happen often, and there’s no guarantee it’ll be here again once the new models are announced. Sometimes the smartest move is to resist the shiny new thing and take advantage of an incredible value while it’s right in front of you. Your wallet will thank you later, and your software will run beautifully. The current generation isn’t going to suddenly become slow or less useful just because Apple introduces a new model next week. It’s still a top-tier pro laptop, and with this discount, it’s also one of the best values in computing right now. So don’t overthink it. If you’ve got the budget, grab the deal before it disappears. And if you want to keep up with all the latest tech news, recommendations, and honest advice like this, power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that’s too important to ignore. Subscribe Today.
