Marques Brownlee isn’t buying the pitch.
After getting his hands on Apple’s newly announced touchscreen MacBook Pro, the YouTuber said the experience still feels unfinished. In a first-impressions video posted Thursday, Brownlee described the touchscreen as “sloppy and messy” and argued that Apple has yet to fix the problems that have always made touchscreen laptops awkward to use.
Apple showed the laptop on Wednesday at its “Pro and Tell” event. The 14-inch model starts at $2,899, the first MacBook Pro to ship with a touchscreen. It pairs a tandem OLED display with multitouch gestures, a lighter body, and the return of a glowing Apple logo. Pre-orders are open now, with the first units shipping November 6.
Brownlee opened his video by playing an old clip of Steve Jobs dismissing vertical touchscreens as ergonomically bad. He then listed the same issues he has had with the category for years.
“I never want fingerprints on my display. I never want the display wobbling around as I’m touching it. And I never want to hold my arm out and have my arm get tired,” Brownlee said.
He acknowledged that Apple’s version is responsive. Multitouch works, pinch-to-zoom feels natural, and the company enlarged some small on-screen targets so they’re easier to hit. None of that, he said, solves the underlying problems.
“It’s still kind of sloppy and messy to use it,” Brownlee said. “But they’re not solving anything. Like they’re making it a little bit easier. They’re adapting for you, but they’re not solving anything.”
He noted that the hinge is a little stiffer than on previous models, yet the screen still shifts when you press on it. The laptop also lacks Apple Pencil support. Brownlee called the touchscreen “just an option” and said he has no personal interest in using it. Most Mac software, he pointed out, is still built around a keyboard and trackpad.
He was more positive about the rest of the machine. The tandem OLED panel, he said, looks “absolutely awesome” in person, with stronger contrast and deeper blacks than the mini-LED screens it replaces. He was especially struck by the weight drop. The 14-inch model is now roughly 3 pounds, down from about 3.5, and the 16-inch is nearly a pound lighter. “I’d upgrade for the weight savings before I would for the touchscreen,” he said.
In a post on X the day before the video, Brownlee had already noted that demos of the touchscreen often involved small mis-touches and fumbles, even while calling the response “smooth as hell.”
The reaction online has been mixed but mostly skeptical. Some pointed back to Jobs’ old comments. Others joked about fingerprints or said they never wanted the feature. Brownlee’s take sits in the middle: the hardware execution is solid, but the basic idea of reaching up to a vertical screen still doesn’t feel solved.
A longer review is expected once he has more time with the laptop.
