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2016 MacBook Pro Fails To Receive a Recommendation From Consumer Reports (9to5mac.com)
Consumer Reports has released its evaluation of the new MacBook Pro laptops, and it's not good. The 2016 MacBook Pro is the first MacBook to fail to receive a recommendation from the nonprofit organization dedicated to unbiased product testing. 9to5Mac reports: In a post breaking down the decision not to recommend the new MacBook Pros, Consumer Reports explains that while the new models held up well in terms of display quality and performance, the battery life issues were too big of an issue to overlook. The organization tested three MacBook Pro variants: a 13-inch Touch Bar model, a 15-inch Touch Bar model, and a 13-inch model without the Touch Bar. The general consensus was that "MacBook Pro battery life results were highly inconsistent from one trial to the next." Consumer Reports explains that the 13-inch Touch Bar model saw battery life of 16 hours in one test and 3.75 hours in another, while the non-Touch Bar model maxed out at 19.5 hours, but also lasted just 4.5 hours in another test. The 15-inch model ranged from 18.5 hours to 8 hours. Generally, according to the report, it's expected for battery life to vary from one trial to another by less than 5 percent, meaning that the battery life variances with the new MacBook Pro are very abnormal. Once that was completed, Consumer Reports experimented by conducting the same test using Chrome and "found battery life to be consistently high on all six runs." While the organization can't let that affect its final decision due to its protocol to only use the first-party browser, it's something users may want to try.
Something is rotten in the state of Apple.
Hell must've frozen over. Next thing you'll tell me a reality TV star became President....
I'm sure anyone looking to by a MacBook Pro isn't looking at Consumer Reports for advise...
The batteries aren't big enough, and Apple's power saving features are too aggressive, leading to a situation where the slightest load that pokes the machine in the wrong way (ie, anything that causes the GPUs to switch, or more CPU cores to wake up) will cause your battery % to drop through the floor.
It's a shame, really. If they weren't so obsessed with thinness to the point of discarding RAM slots, SSD sockets, and battery capacity- it might actually be a decent machine.
I wonder how many people pointed out these issues prior to launch. The answer is either "lots" (who were summarily ignored), or "none at all" (because everyone was fearing for their jobs- thou shall not go against thy word of thy great Ive). Either way, this only serves to highlight the growing dysfunction within Apple. And I can guarantee you their response to falling Mac sales won't be to release the machine people want, but rather to cancel the whole lineup entirely.
It shows integrity in an age of constant suspicion.
Then the battery problem is solved.
However, I'm sure there will be many posts here saying Apple is doomed or whatever.
Apple's bread and butter is fit/finish and consistent user experience. Guess the reports of the Mac division getting ignored at Apple are not exaggerating because they sure seem to be dropping the ball here
The bit about Safari and battery life is telling of QC issues.It sounds like safari processes are getting stuck in a race condition and are probably eating 100% cpu on a core. (I've seen this happen with lots of browsers and not just Safari. Modern webpages with megabytes of shitty JS can do this easily)
I get that maintaining a browser is a lot of work (Why is apple still developing Safari for that mater?) but it's still no excuse. The safari Devs should know that they will be running on battery powered platforms and should not let their product eat cpu for lunch. Worse, the scheduler and power management facilities in MacOS should not let shit like that run down the battery either. Worse still - None of this, any of this should have gotten past general QC. Apple did not test their new Macbooks enough.
I can give apple a pass on their hardware - Non-upgradable unified logic board construction is where the industry is going anyway and you should get used to it. Consumers demand smaller, lighter, cheaper, faster.
But offering a premium device at a premium price tier with such bad QC makes apple no better than everyone else who just slaps their logo on something made in Shenzen.
Consumer Reports is what it is, and for lots of stuff it is great, but because they do pretty well with appliances does not make them experts anywhere else. A very old joke in Motor Trend (or the equivalent; I forget.) has white lab coated guys in beards and spectacles carefully taking notes on clipboards as they push cars off a cliff. To one man's query another guy says, "Oh, that's just Consumer Reports testing cars again."
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Circulation numbers cratering at @ConsumerReports who just published a stupid review of @MacBookPro. Quality down, subscriptions canceled, bankers nervous. Sad!
I got the mid 2015 15" pro and I'm hoping it will last years. I've had Lenovo, HP and Dell through work and they are fine. The Macbook Pro on the other hand is really really nice to work with. Trackpad is just superb and Magsafe should be standard on all laptops (IMHO).
The only thing I would like different is more RAM (I use several VMs).
So when the new model arrived I was sure I would be a bit anoyed about the increased ram size and other new features that I would miss, but no.
I'm actually happy I got the previous model. It's so much better for my use.
I wouldn't even consider the new model. Who the f..k buys a pro laptop without any USB A ports? How isolated are you? Dongles? I hate dongles. I'm not spending that much money to carry around a bunch of dongles.
If Apple wants their Pro line to be used by bloggers then ok. They lost their way.
The reason? Too many ports!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Once Trump is finally in charge, and brings Apple jobs back to the US, 2017 MacBook Pros will once again be great again.
Consumer Reports is what it is, and for lots of stuff it is great...
Especially great at trashing Apple when it deserves to be trashed.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Back in the '80's, CR dinged VW because they used a single turn signal indicator in the console instead of the separate left and right ones common on US cars. One could only conclude that CR drivers needed that as a reminder because they often forgot which way they intended to turn.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The point at which I determined CR to be crap for automotive testing is when they gave the Honda pickup truck the recommendation because it had the most comfortable interior and smoothest ride. Of course, it had the smallest bed, the lowest hauling capacity, and the worst trailer rating, but why would you need any of that in a pickup truck?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Of course I'm mostly hoping for funny comments (as of days of yore), but in the case of this specific article I was hoping to find something about the possible causes of the variability in battery life. The mention of Safari was quite speculative, but I guess it isn't the job of Consumer Reports to diagnose the problems, just find them?
Anyway, for what it's worth, I have a long history with Apple, but as of this writing I do not anticipate any future purchase from Apple. The company is now dedicated to monolithic Apple-style thinking, which I find rather humorous considering the slogan of their most famous advertising campaign. Anything resembling criticism of Apple is now regarded as double-plus-ungood. Shut uppa your mouth!
I'm not sure how much to blame Apple. I think it is the American laws that basically require big companies to become increasingly evil in order to survive. Being an evil company is not a guarantee of success and huge profits, but being a nice company has become an absolute guarantee of failure, usually via acquisition. (My current list of examples includes NetScape, Palm, Sun, and Nokia.)
I'll check back later, though my hope of finding truly funny comments is fading these years.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Especially great at trashing Apple when it deserves to be trashed.
It took courage to write a review breaking out of the reality distortion field.
Says a majority of the people who buy pickups and who, by the way, never fill the bed, haul anything that can't be lifted by two people, or pull a trailer.
"why would you need any of that in a pickup truck?"
Based on the pickups I see being driven around here, the ability to carry cargo isn't an important consideration for the majority of pickup drivers.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
My girlfriend's laptop (2015) started displaying very short battery life. My research showed that fairly innocuous webpages were causing Safari to drain the battery. Switching to Chrome fixed it.
Dipshits will still buy them no matter what
That's the real problem with the laptops that make them useless for serious users. My nearly six year-old MacBook has 16 GB of RAM, and Apple does not allow you to have more than that in the new one. They make crappy laptops that you'll need to replace even before you buy it. I'm buying one, but inly because mine is so old. I will be forced to replace it the day Apple releases something usable.
The inconsistency of Safari is weird and the difference from the consistent efficiency of Chrome is odd, but they stopped the tests too soon to tell us much. They should have run tests on Firefox and checked the Activity Monitor to see it they could spot obvious differences. One possibility is that interactions among Apple software may be contributing to the reduction of battery life.
... "But! But! But... It's *THINNER*! THINNER I TELL YOU!"
Apple, after a point no one gives a shit about thin. Your PCs are underpowered and overpriced and your chicklet keyboards suck ass
Says a majority of the people who buy pickups and who, by the way, never fill the bed, haul anything that can't be lifted by two people, or pull a trailer.
1. If that were the case, the Honda would be selling pretty well. Honda pulled the vehicle from N.A. sales a couple years ago due to almost non-existent sales. The F-150 is the best selling vehicle in the US.
2. The F-150 is the most popular vehicle amongst people making more than $1 million a year. It's, pretty much all, contractors and ranchers. You know, people who actually use pickup trucks.
3. I know this because half of my family work directly for automotive manufacturers and suppliers, and they know the market.
Sure, there are plenty of people who buy pickups who don't need them. People buy sports cars and don't race them. People drive Jeeps without ever taking them off road. That doesn't mean a sports car with lousy performance is a good sports car, or an off road vehicle that doesn't do well off-road is a good off-road vehicle.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I was eagerly awaiting the new MBP release expecting it would support 32GB like everyone else (hell, you can buy relatively svelte laptops that supports 64GB from Dell). The 16GB limit, the fact that you can't upgrade the RAM or the SSD, the lack of ports... the new MBP was just a giant middle finger to the "power user" community. It's very apparent that the executive/senior management at Apple could give two sh*ts about their technical/professional user base any more and are more focused on users who are concerned about how their device looks. The recent article on Bloomberg.com bears that out. The thing is, from a business stand point it makes sense. The average users is, well, average, and represents a much larger user base than you or I. "Space Gray" and "Rose Gold" are much much easier and cheaper options to implement during assembly than multiple memory options, etc. You can either spend more on R&D to appeal to 10-25% of the market or you can appeal to the 75% of the market like my wife whose still happily chugging along on her 8GB MacBook Air. From a business standpoint it's a no-brainer. I'm disappointed, I loved my MBP's but it's time to move on.
Consumer Reports showed REAL courage in not recommending your product...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So consumer reports does not take into account Tim Cook displays gays, blacks, women and fat people in their MacBook product announcements, and has shinny iWatches????
Who knew minorities advocacy should not be taken into account selecting a good computer?
How unpc of Consumer report...I am flabbergasted!
You don't need dongles for most things, you simply get a new cable that has USB-C. I greatly prefer being able to use any of the four ports for anything - charging on either side is really nice, as is choosing which side I want to connect cables to.
All USB-C was absolutely the right choice to make now, going forward it will be way better for people to have four high speed ports rather than waste a single space on a USB-A port.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
requires courage.
Trump loves the uneducated and the uneducated love Trump!
I didn't read that article, but I can see a reasonable justifcation for the rating. Maybe sometimes people bump the turn signal stalk the wrong way and indicate the incorrect turn direction, and the indicator would help them to know that they're indicating incorrectly, thus avoiding an unexpected (from the point of other drivers) turn.
Not saying that I think it's worth dinging a car's rating over, but there might be some sense to it, especially if you consider the very limits of safety features to be an important component of a car.
... courage!
You wont need battery life longer than your AirPods!
More importantly, the web browser makes the difference between recommended and not. Ignore all of the hardware, its the browser.
I'm curious now, exactly what they are testing. I'm guessing Facebook and YouTube, or similar. Ajax and video. Not my use case, but certainly a popular one.
I guess I won't make fun of Microsoft pimping their browser efficiency any more...
Apple and Microsoft both intended to use Kaby Lake processors in their latest iteration but ended up using SkyLake processors instead because of delays. This according to a very reliable news source that never succumbs to hyperbole, bad journalism or gives in to the temptation to post click-bait. The linked article even mentions the forced decision to use SkyLake processors as the reason for poorer battery life. The current Microsoft/Apple offerings in this device class are interim devices., so the thing to do is defer purchasing decisions until devices with the Kaby Lake processors arrive. On the plus side, this story will allow all the Apple critics out there to come here, vent their rage and thus lower their blood pressure.
There must be something wrong with the power management. I just moved from an Air --
which runs cool and gives 8h battery to the Escape-13in pro. It gets very very hot, uncomfortable even
on the plastic keys. 4h battery. It's like going back 10 years in power use.
Mail runs with an energy impact of about 60 most of the time [gmail+pro imap]. Same useage pattern
as my older Air. Lets hope there is an update on the way.
I've never seen a pickup pull a trailer. I doubt it would be very suitable for that.
That's kind of ironic: in Europe it used to be mostly American manufacturers (Ford and GM) that used a single combined signal indicator in cheaper models, although nowadays I don't think you can buy any car that has it. That being said, I agree completely that it is essentially irrelevant. You tend to know which way you flipped the indicator and if not, it's easy enough to check.
I think Apple was done when Steve Jobs was done. Jobs was the obsessive perfectionist and Tim Cook is just a bean counter. Much of what Apple has been released since Steve Jobs has been either a failure in marketing, riddled with problems or should have never been produced. Tim Cook has allowed the freaks to run the company with dumb ideals, and poorly implemented designs. Sad that we watch a company implode slowly.
Timmy and Apple will now go FULL METAL QUEER on Consumer Reports to destroy them.
Timmy and Apple will argue in press and media that Consumer Reports if biased and Anti-Queer and its employees must be destroyed.
Apple Legal Queers will lobby Congress to block all bank loans and bank accounts of Consumer Reports and attempt to have Consumer Reports licenses revoked.
Timmy, "I AM A QUEER AND I A GONNA KEEE U".
Then you're free to go out and publish "Contractor and Rancher Reports." Otherwise, it's perfectly rational to rank automobiles based upon the criteria that a majority of one's readers will apply to the vehicle. And the majority of even the F-150 market is not ranchers and contractors or people who actually use pickup trucks. It's suburban wannabes who occasionally need to haul large but comparatively lightweight items but for some reason won't simply rent a work truck.
BTW: The Ridgeline is back, so I'm also questioning your knowledge of the market.
Of course, it had the smallest bed, the lowest hauling capacity, and the worst trailer rating, but why would you need any of that in a pickup truck?
The same type of people who buy Land Rovers and Subarus and never go off road. You're assuming that people buy cars (just) for utilitarian grounds, and not for image as well: that is an incorrect assumption.
That doesn't mean a sports car with lousy performance is a good sports car, or an off road vehicle that doesn't do well off-road is a good off-road vehicle.
The performance needs to be "good enough", and after that other factors take precedence: styling, comfort, etc.
And you are assuming that people are buying "off-road vehicles": they're not. They are buying "tough looking vehicles" or "masculine looking cars" or "penis extensions". Take your pick of term.
People are not Vulcans, and so make decisions that do not involve the use of logic and reason.
Lots of pickups here in far northern California with many different uses including the occasional hauler, many lifted for off-road fun, and actual work trucks. I got rid of my truck a couple years ago as I was in the first category and didn't feel like paying the extra DMV fees and gas for something I only needed a couple times a year.
And the majority of even the F-150 market is not ranchers and contractors or people who actually use pickup trucks. It's suburban wannabes who occasionally need to haul large but comparatively lightweight items but for some reason won't simply rent a work truck.
Yeah, sorry, you have no idea what you're talking about. If you've read articles on "truck" demographics, they almost always conflate compact and light duty with medium and heavy duty pickups, along with truck-chasis based SUVs. Remove the compact and SUV segments and it's mostly work trucks. The second largest segment for these vehicles are people towing boats or mobile homes, and that's a pretty small percentage.
BTW: The Ridgeline is back, so I'm also questioning your knowledge of the market.
AFTER BEING GONE FOR TWO YEARS. You don't pull a vehicle off the market if it's doing well.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
My observations is that suburbanites who occasionally need to haul but comparatively lightweight items buy SUVs. But the mileage of that author may vary. Now, if you wanna class hobby farmers into 'suburbanites' maybe....
They brought back Jobs in the first place because they were failures without him. He really was a super-genius, not like the Wile E Coyote type.
Not sure if it's true - Unfortunately from what I hear they are way too more focused on gay issues than making cool stuff anymore. So not Americanism, it's anti-Americanism that's to blame. Americanism works well if we let it. More to life than trying to figure out if every single statement made by someone is somehow anti- whatever so you can take offense. Offense is always taken, never given.
Don't bring up Microsoft. There's always an exception to the rule.
I also don't anticipate purchasing any other Apple product. I have a bunch of their products. Not sure WTF I'm going to do. There's a vacuum for someone to fill. Maybe they'll pull their head out of their ass and fix this. Bring in a new genius. There is probably already one working for them.
Remember when Bravia was the top of the line Sony television? Then they reduced the quality and rebranded the entire line as Bravia? This appears what Apple may be doing with the laptops. It seems possible that with the string of PR stumbles (not including a twenty-nine cent USB A to C adaptor in the box, power issues, inaccurate monitor [yes it's wider gamut but it's not particularly accurate one] and what ever else is lurking, we may see some PR retrenchment from Apple.
If the Mac Pros are basically consumer-grade Mac Airs now, are they planning on keeping a product differentiation for actual pro level machines? If so, what will these be called.
Apart from Hackintoshes, I mean.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.