Apple's MacBook Pro lineup has been riding high on the M-series chips, but there's one design decision that's quietly driven users up the wall for years: that notch.
And according to a steady drip of supply chain leaks, the next refresh may finally address it — or at least rethink the whole display assembly in a way that makes it less of an eyesore.
The rumor mill has been churning since late last year.
Display analysts who track Apple's panel orders say the company has been evaluating OLED technology for the MacBook Pro, a shift that would mark the first time Apple's pro laptops ditch mini-LED.
OLED brings deeper blacks, better contrast, and thinner panels — which matters because a thinner display housing could mean a smaller camera cutout, or the return of a more elegant solution.
Here's where the dots connect in a way most coverage misses.
Apple didn't just slap a notch on the MacBook Pro for fun.
It was a direct consequence of shrinking the bezels to compete with Windows ultrabooks that had already gone edge-to-edge.
The notch let Apple keep a decent 1080p webcam while maximizing screen real estate.
But the execution felt lazy to longtime users who remembered the sleek, notch-free designs of the Intel era.
If Apple moves to OLED, it opens the door to under-display camera tech — something Samsung and others have been experimenting with on phones for years.
Putting a camera under a laptop display is harder because laptop screens are larger and the pixel density math gets tricky, but the payoff would be a genuinely seamless MacBook Pro.
That's the kind of change that would get people to upgrade, not just another spec bump.
Apple's current MacBook Pro with M4 chips launched fairly recently, so a full redesign isn't imminent.
Most credible leakers point to late 2025 or early 2026 for the next major refresh.
That gives Apple time to work out OLED supply, which has historically been constrained by Samsung Display and LG Display's production capacity for large-format panels.
What should you actually do with this information?
If you're on an M1 or M2 MacBook Pro and it still handles your workload, there's no urgent reason to jump.
The M4 models are excellent machines, but they're iterative.
The real generational leap — the one that changes the physical design and the display — is likely still a year or more out.
Waiting could mean getting a laptop that feels genuinely new rather than just faster.
The bigger picture is that Apple is slowly being pushed by the competition.
Windows laptops from Dell, Lenovo, and ASUS have been shipping OLED displays, thinner chassis, and better webcams for a while now.
Apple's habit of perfecting a feature years after rivals introduce it has worked before, but the MacBook Pro's design has started to feel dated in ways that specs alone can't paper over.
Our take: Apple has earned some patience, but not infinite patience.
The MacBook Pro is still the best laptop for most creative professionals, and the M-series chips remain untouchable on efficiency.
Final Thoughts
But if the next refresh is just another chip swap with the same notch and the same chassis, Apple will have officially stopped trying — and that's a problem no benchmark score can fix.