Apple presents 15-inch MacBook Pro with Force Touch trackpad

Apple presented a 15-inch model of the MacBook Pro with a Force Touch trackpad on Tuesday. The 13-inch variant was already available in a new version with that trackpad. There will also be a cheaper iMac with a 5k screen.

Apple presented the MacBook on Tuesday, focusing on the Force Touch trackpad and faster flash storage. That trackpad is also in the 12″ MacBook and the 13″ MacBook Pro. The Force Touch trackpad works with a vibrating motor instead of real buttons and is pressure sensitive: the trackpad can therefore distinguish between a soft touch and a hard press on the trackpad. The software can link other functions to it, so that a hard touch triggers a different function than a soft click.

The Intel Haswell quad-core processor in the laptop runs at 2.2GHz with a turbo up to 3.4GHz, with faster options for an additional cost. In the new Pro, customers can also opt for Intel Iris Pro graphics or an AMD Radeon R9 M370X, assisted by 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The laptop has 16GB of RAM.

The new 15″ MacBook Pro is available immediately from 2249 euros for the version with Iris Pro and 2799 euros for the variant with AMD card.

In addition to the new laptop, Apple has also made a cheaper version of its iMac with a 5k screen. The cheaper version contains slightly different hardware: Apple has replaced the 1TB fusion drive with a conventional hard drive, it no longer contains an AMD Radeon M290X, but an M290 and the Core i5 processor is clocked lower. On the other hand, the price is 300 euros lower. The cheaper iMac is available from 2329 euros.