Four LEDs and a Diffuser Revive the Glowing Logo on the MacBook Pro PROLED XDR

Old MacBooks let light from the LCD backlight shine through an apple-shaped window in the lid. This one has no backlight at all. Its tandem OLED panel makes every pixel its own light source, which left Apple with a problem when it decided to bring the glowing logo back after a decade. iFixit opened a 14-inch model to see how the company solved it and found a strip of four small LEDs mounted along one edge of a dedicated module behind the screen.

Light from the LEDs is reflected and then diffused, transforming four discrete points of light into a homogeneous glow that fills the shape of an apple. To keep everything looking slick even when the lights are turned off, a shiny mirror coating is placed to the logo. When the lights are on, the mirror allows light to pass through while keeping the surface bright and undamaged. On either side of the module, there are two light rigid foam pads that act as backing when the glass is pressed and provide additional support for the OLED panel. It’s a bit of a maze because the entire arrangement is just behind the monitor, so getting to it requires navigating through the screen.

iFixit warmed up the lid from the rear, wiggled a small pick under the rubber trim, and watched as the glass separated from the layers beneath. Unfortunately for them, the OLED and touch layers fractured while in the process. Replacing the lid as a single complete item is actually rather simple, much easier than it was before with cables, brackets, and no lid-angle sensor, so there is less to go wrong. However, getting to the LEDs that illuminate the logo will necessitate a complete rebuild of the panel, which will not be pretty. The fans and USB ports are still modular, but getting to them requires removing the entire logic board. The HDMI and SDXC slots are still soldered to the board, as are the storage and unified memory.

Under a microscope, you can see that the tandem OLED is made up of two stacked light-emitting layers that help make the display much brighter without having to push more power through each one. The blue subpixels are rather large in relation to the red and green ones, a purposeful design choice that should reduce wear on the blue material, which is prone to aging. In terms of specifications, the display can operate at 120Hz and reaches a peak brightness of approximately 2000 nits while still responding to touch. After swapping a logic board between two laptops, the Repair Assistant recognized the battery, display, and Touch ID sensor with ease. The new board also worked flawlessly without the need for any additional pairing, and Touch ID enrolled properly on both the donor and original boards once they were reinserted.

Weight came down 170 grams compared with the standard 14-inch M6 MacBook Pro, landing at 1.38 kg. The majority of the weight savings came from merely deleting some aluminum from the lower chassis, which now weighs 364 grams instead of 456 before. Even with touch and the new logo lights, the display unit reduced 101 grams in weight. Meanwhile, the 72.6 Wh battery weighed two grams less than last year’s model, while the smaller trackpad saved an additional eight grams. The speakers ended up 10 grams heavier than intended, and while the revised woofers promise richer bass, it’s hard to disagree with physics.

iFixit tested this machine and gave it a 5 out of 10 for repairability, the first time this model has outperformed last year’s M5 MacBook Pro, but it is still one point behind the bargain MacBook Neo. One reason for the higher score is that there are less screws on the bottom cover, and there is no separate lid angle sensor as in the past. Additionally, the new Touch ID appears to operate a little better even after a component replacement. Of course, having to remove the logic board to access ports or a fan is a significant disappointment, and let’s not even get started on the storage and RAM being soldered in. It won’t be long until, beginning in 2027, this scoring system deducts even more points for soldered memory, lowering this model to a mere 4.