After Apple unveiled the new MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro last week — all toting the new M5 chipset — the first question on everybody’s lips (in SA, anyway) was “how much?”, shortly followed by “when?”. Well, we finally have our answers for two of those devices. You didn’t expect the Vision Pro to arrive that soon, did you?
Like Apple’s recent iPhone 17 launch, South Africa will get the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro on the same day as the States — Wednesday, 22 October. That’s only two days from now, barely leaving you enough time to dive between the couch cushions to scrounge up enough to afford one of these. And scrounge you will for Apple’s M5 tech.
What did you expect?
At the time of writing, pre-orders are only available from South Africa’s local iStore website, but we don’t expect it’ll be long before the other players — Incredible Connection, Digital Experience, etc — join in the fun. Just don’t get your hopes up for cheaper prices elsewhere if you’re determined to hold out for a day or two. This is Apple.
Which is why the R34,500 starting price for the 14in M5 MacBook Pro should come as no surprise to anyone. That’s only if you’re willing to limit yourself to 16GB ‘unified memory’ and 512GB of storage. Up that to 24GB and 1TB respectively, though? Then you’ve got a whole new beast that’ll cost R43,000 when all is said and done.
Read More: Apple’s M6-toting MacBook Pro will reportedly include an OLED touchscreen
As for the M5 iPad Pro, pricing is considerably higher. That’s simply because Apple hasn’t yet unveiled the 16in MacBook Pro, which will likely dethrone everything on this list price-wise when it inevitably turns up. Until then, the new iPad Pro leads the charge that, when maxed out, will reach an astonishingly high price of R56,500.
That means opting for the larger 13in display (made with nano-texture glass, of course), upping the storage to the 2TB maximum, and adding a cellular connection on top of the Wi-Fi capabilities. If all you’re after is an 11in display, 256GB os storage, standard glass, and Wi-Fi only, you can cut that all the way down to R21,500.
