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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.
So here's the thing. Apple made completely user upgradeable machines. Even made an iMac model where everything except the screen / logic board could be replaced by the user with pretty much nothing more than a #2 screwdriver. Do you know what customers did? Still demanded Apple do the upgrades / replacements. I worked for Apple repair at the time, I can count on 1 hand the number of times a customer wanted to do their own upgrading or repair work. I don't have larger market data, but I would wager the number of people that actually upgrade their computer as opposed to buying a new one (even when they can) is not offset by the increases in reliability, and improved engineering possibilities that comes with the direct soldered parts.
Yes, some people want to be able to do upgrades, but I would bet that number is even less than the number that install Bootcamp.
I'm sure anyone looking to by a MacBook Pro isn't looking at Consumer Reports for advise...
Advice. Advise is a verb. Advice is a noun.
I'd say people doing their own upgrades didn't care about 'apple approved' parts. I bought dozens of macbooks for my employer with base specs and immediately popped a SSD and 3rd party ram in them upon receipt. It was way cheaper and if anything went wrong, I'd put the original parts back and send it in for repair.