What was compared
MyBroadband compared two specific South African configurations:
- Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with M5 Pro, listed at R71,999 from iStore.
- Dell 16 Premium with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, listed at R102,999.
The Dell costs R31,000 more, about 43% above the MacBook's price. These are single listings, not whole product families. Prices and stock can change.
The Dell is the machine that replaced the XPS line in June 2025. Retail listings I found show the same core configuration (285H, RTX 5060 with 8GB, 32GB of LPDDR5X, 1TB SSD, 16.3-inch 4K OLED touch at 120Hz, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, Windows 11 Pro). One retailer lists the 16.3-inch touch OLED at 48–120Hz. The retailer pages were US listings, not the South African one, so they only confirm the configuration and not the rand price.
The Apple side: what is actually new
Apple announced the touchscreen MacBook Pro on October 28, 2026, with availability from November 6. It is the first Mac with touch input and a tandem OLED panel, which Apple calls PROLED XDR. It also brings the Dynamic Island to the Mac.
Apple says macOS translates touches into clicks automatically, so many existing apps work with touch immediately. Apple names Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook among the apps taking advantage of touch.
This is a separate and later announcement from Apple's March 2026 launch of M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros. Those earlier machines had a Liquid Retina XDR display and no touch. The comparison here only concerns the new touch model.
Spec-by-spec reading
| Area | MacBook Pro 16 M5 Pro | Dell 16 Premium |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 18-core M5 Pro | 16-core Core Ultra 9 285H |
| Graphics | Integrated 20-core Apple GPU | Discrete RTX 5060, 8GB |
| Memory | 24GB unified | 32GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | 1TB | 1TB |
| Display | 16-inch OLED, 120Hz | 16.3-inch OLED, 3,840×2,400, 120Hz |
| Ports | 3× Thunderbolt 5, HDMI, SDXC, MagSafe 3 | 3× Thunderbolt 4, microSDXC |
| Weight | 1.82kg | 2.11kg |
| Thickness | 1.6cm | 1.87cm |
| Price | R71,999 | R102,999 |
The Mac is clearly ahead on price, weight (0.29kg lighter on the listed figures), thickness and port generation. The Dell is ahead on listed RAM, discrete graphics and panel pixel count.
Where the article needs care
Benchmarks. MyBroadband cites PassMark CPU Mark scores of 57,315 for the M5 Pro and 34,234 for the Core Ultra 9 285H. Single-thread scores are 5,937 and 4,419. That is a large gap on paper. These are aggregate synthetic scores, though, and MyBroadband did not run its own tests. They don't prove the Mac is faster in every application. They also say little about sustained performance under load.
Graphics. MyBroadband itself calls the graphics picture unclear. It says the RTX 5060 is better for gaming and the M5 Pro is stronger for AI work and power efficiency. It gives no testing method for either claim. Game availability and software support matter more than raw numbers here. A Windows laptop with a discrete Nvidia GPU runs a far larger library of PC games and GPU-accelerated Windows software.
Resolution figures conflict. MyBroadband's table lists the MacBook panel as 3,472×2,266, but its prose says 3,472×2,226. Treat the exact Mac resolution as unconfirmed. The Dell's 3,840×2,400 figure matches retailer listings.
Port speeds. MyBroadband quotes "120GB/s" for Thunderbolt 5 and "40GB/s" for Thunderbolt 4. Those numbers are almost certainly gigabits per second, not gigabytes. Thunderbolt 5 is commonly described as offering 120Gbps in boosted mode, and Thunderbolt 4 as 40Gbps. The generational gap is real, but it is smaller in practical terms than the unit suggests. I haven't verified the exact rates against the Thunderbolt specification here.
Battery. Apple claims up to 24 hours of video streaming and 17 hours of wireless web use. Dell's listing offers only "all day power". Both batteries are about 99.5–99.6Wh, but the claims aren't comparable. No independent runtime data is cited.
Memory. Apple's unified memory and Dell's LPDDR5X plus separate 8GB of GPU memory work differently. 24GB versus 32GB is not a clean like-for-like comparison.
What Windows buyers should take from it
- Price pressure. A touch OLED MacBook Pro at roughly 30% less than a comparable Dell is awkward for Windows premium laptops, at least at these South African listings.
- Software ecosystem. If your workflow depends on Windows-only software, enterprise management through Intune or Active Directory, or PC gaming, the Dell's operating system and GPU matter more than benchmark charts.
- Touch maturity. Windows has supported touch for years, and macOS is only now adding it. That is a point of difference, though this comparison doesn't test how well either handles touch day to day.
- Verify before buying. Check the current rand price, the exact Dell SKU and the Mac configuration. A configuration with more Mac memory would change the price gap.
Bottom line
The supported takeaways are specific. The MacBook is cheaper, lighter, thinner and has Thunderbolt 5. The Dell has more RAM, a discrete 8GB GPU and a slightly higher-resolution panel. The Mac leads on the cited CPU benchmarks. "Beats in many aspects" is fair for those. As a verdict on the better laptop overall, it overreaches, because that depends on whether you need Windows, PC gaming or macOS.