Apple's 31.6-inch professional display may arrive soon, 17-inch MacBook Pro in early 2021 [u]

Apple's Thunderbolt display, the company's last professional display

A new research note penned by Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that Apple's long-awaited professional-grade display will arrive in the next few months, and the rumored MacBook Pro with larger display won't arrive until the first half of 2021 — and both will incorporate mini LED backlighting.

Ming-Chi Kuo doesn't delve into specs on the display in his latest note, declaring the size, and mini LED backlight specifications. Kuo expects that the display will have some form of wide color gamut, and high contrast.

His reiteration of the MacBook Pro rumor also says that it will incorporate mini LED backlighting, but has more to do with timing for release, than anything else. Less certain in the report is a migration of the technology to a large-format iPad, but that is less clear in the note.

Further, iPad models featuring mini LED backlighting are expected to land at the end of 2020 or early 2021.

Notably, Kuo believes Apple's standalone monitor will employ "mini LED-like" technology, meaning the LED backlighting chips will be larger than a "true" mini LED array. The MacBook Pro and iPad units will boast the smaller mini LED chip sizes, allowing for about 15 to 25 times the number of total chips per display compared to the 31.6-inch monitor.

Kuo dropped the tidbit in a research note on Feb. 17 that included information regarding a range of products. No further details on the larger MacBook Pro were offered in the note, nor is there much in Monday's note, beyond advice about what mini LED manufacturers readers should invest in.

That mini LED MacBook Pro will boast a screen measuring between 16 and 16.5 inches on the diagonal, Kuo predicted earlier, with Monday's note suggesting that up to 17 inches is possible. If true, the MacBook Pro line will see its first significant bump in display size since Apple discontinued the 17-inch model in 2012. Currently, the largest MacBook Pro on offer features a 15-inch Retina display packing a resolution of 2,880-by-1,800 pixels.

In the same research report from February, the well-connected analyst also dished details on plans for a new "easy-to-upgrade" Mac Pro, a 6K Apple display, three new iPads and three new iPhones.

At present, it isn't clear if Monday's note is discussing the rumored 6K display, or another resolution.

The note was originally obtained by the Economic Daily News who are more focused on the supply chain implications of such a move.

Updated with details on iPad and mini LED sizes.