The OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro is reportedly much lighter than today's

Apple’s next MacBook Pro may weigh a lot less than the one you can buy today. That comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who wrote in Sunday’s Power On newsletter that the big redesign is close and should debut within about a month. Apple has not confirmed any of it.

What the report says

Gurman says the new laptop will be the first MacBook with a touchscreen and the first with a Tandem OLED display. In plain terms, that is an OLED panel built from two stacked layers of light-emitting pixels, which usually means more brightness and a longer life than a single layer. OLED also gives deeper blacks, since each pixel turns itself on or off.

The report also says the new models will be “significantly” lighter than the current ones. Apple is reportedly getting there by shrinking components and rearranging what sits inside the case. The exact weight has not been reported.

For a baseline, Engadget notes that today’s 14-inch MacBook Pro weighs 3.4 pounds. Any meaningful cut from there is something you would notice in a backpack.

More rumored details

9to5Mac, which picked up the newsletter, lists other points tied to the redesign. All of them are rumors too:

• M5 Pro and M5 Max chips for the higher-end models, according to the site.
• The Dynamic Island, the cutout area that shows alerts and live activities on the iPhone, would also show up on the laptop.
• A debut “within a month or so,” which points to around November.

Engadget adds that the first OLED iPad mini is expected to launch at the same time, and that Apple under new CEO John Ternus, who has a hardware engineering background, has put more weight on product design, with design teams now reporting directly to him.

Price and availability

Neither article mentions pricing, and neither says anything about regional availability. So there is no number to compare with the current lineup yet.

A rumor is still a rumor

Gurman has a strong track record on Apple, but details like weight, chip names and feature labels can change before launch. What to keep in mind for now: a touchscreen, a two-layer OLED display and a lighter body are what is expected, and nothing is official until Apple shows the product.

If you are planning a laptop upgrade in the next few weeks, the practical advice is to wait for the announcement. If you were going to buy the current model anyway, a new generation often brings discounts on the older one.