Apple launched the MacBook Pro with M5 chip on October 22nd, and here we are on November 20th watching Amazon slash prices for Black Friday: That’s never happened to a MacBook Pro this fresh out of the box. It’s also worth mentioning that the Apple store doesn’t run Black Friday sales so Amazon’s discounting is notable for anyone who’s been eyeing these machines.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 chip, 16GB of unified memory, and 512GB of storage just dropped to $1,444 on Amazon, down from its $1,599 retail price. The 1TB models are also on sale but his configuration hits the sweet spot between capability and cost: enough power for serious work without the premium attached to maxed-out specs.
Desktop Performance to Laptop Form Factor
The M5 chip features a 10-core CPU is split between performance and efficiency cores that handle workloads intelligently based on task demands. Heavy applications like video editing, 3D rendering, or software compilation run on performance cores that deliver maximum speed, while background tasks use efficiency cores that sip power. The 10-core GPU accelerates graphics tasks, machine learning workloads and video encoding significantly faster than previous generations. Apple built the M5 on an advanced manufacturing process that packs more transistors into the same space while generating less heat. The chip’s neural engine handles 38 trillion operations per second, and powers Apple Intelligence features that run entirely on-device without sending data to cloud servers.
The 16GB of unified memory is the new baseline for MacBook Pro and replaces the old 8GB entry point that felt cramped for professional workflows. Unified memory architecture lets the CPU, GPU, and neural engine access the same RAM pool without copying data between separate memory banks, which speeds up operations and improves efficiency. This configuration keeps dozens of browser tabs open, along with multiple creative applications, virtual machines, and background processes, all without forcing apps to reload or swap to disk.
The Liquid Retina XDR display measures 14.2 inches and pushes a resolution of 3024 by 1964, complete with mini-LED backlighting capable of providing 1000 nits of sustained brightness and 1600 nits peak brightness for HDR content. It can display a billion colors with great accuracy, good enough to handle color-critical work like photo editing or even video color grading. ProMotion technology allows adaptive refresh rates of up to 120Hz, ensuring that scrolling works fluidly and there’s less motion blur while fast content is playing. True Tone adjusts color temperature based on ambient lighting to reduce eye strain during extended work sessions.
With Apple Intelligence integration, AI capabilities run locally on the M5’s neural engine and keeps your data private while delivering instant responses. It can summarize emails, generate writing suggestions, create custom emojis from descriptions, and transcribe audio in real-time. These features work seamlessly across all Apple applications and many third-party apps that adopt the APIs. Since it operates on-device, AI features work without internet connectivity, nor does it send any of your information to remote servers.
The laptop includes three Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, an SD card slot, a headphone jack, and MagSafe charging that magnetically attaches to prevent cable yanks from pulling the laptop off your desk. Battery life reaches as high as 22 hours of video playback on a single charge which means you can get full work days without hunting for outlets. Fast charging brings the battery from empty to 50% in about 30 minutes.
At $1,444, this Black Friday discount brings the latest MacBook Pro down by $155 less than a month after launch and represents unprecedentedly aggressive pricing for brand-new Apple hardware.
