Apple’s new MacBook Pro is slim, trim and has a stunning screen

We knew it was coming, and now it’s here. Apple’s newest MacBook Pro. It’s thinner, it’s lighter and it comes with a better screen than the Pros of yesteryear. But, given how much of the company’s presentation was dedicated to it, the showstopper for the new MBP is a truly unique hardware feature in the world of computing — an OLED screen embedded in the keyboard called the Touch Strip.

That sliver of screen eliminates the hard function keys we’ve been saddled with for years in favor of an infinitely customizable and contextually aware software inputs instead. At first blush, it looks like it’ll be quite the useful feature for creative power users, which is why Apple spent so much time in the keynote showcasing its uses for photo and video editing and music making. Plus at the right edge of that strip lies a Touch ID sensor, that allows folks to login to their Macs via their fingertips. In the limited time I spent with the new Pro, that sensor worked as it should — which is to say considerably faster than typing in a password.

As for using the strip itself? Well, there wasn’t much we could do except for scroll through webpages, apps and photos, and for that it worked well. For such uses it strikes me as more of a novelty than anything particularly useful, though it was nice to be able to utilize the full screen while scrolling through images.

Aside from the Touch Strip, the laptop itself is an engineering marvel. It feels super solid, like a solid slab of aluminum, and I’m particularly enamored with the space gray finish. It’s remarkable that Apple managed to cram fully fledged MBP internals into a chassis that weighs even less than a MacBook Air — I held my Air in one hand and the new 13-inch Pro in the other, and I couldn’t tell a difference between them. The 15-inch model is a bit heavier, of course, but it’s still a relatively svelte machine for how powerful it is.

And I can’t discuss the hardware without mentioning the new screen. The wider color gamut it provides isn’t something that most civilians need, but it is a noticeable upgrade when you see the difference side to side. Colors really are richer and more vibrant, particularly with warmer colors: reds and yellows in particular.

You can order the new MacBook Pros starting today, with a standard model (read: no Touch Strip) available now for $1499, while the Touch Strip equipped 13 and 15 inch models will set you back $1799 and $2399, respectively. You can get a standard model in store tomorrow, while the others won’t ship out for 2-3 week. Patience is a virtue, y’all.