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Apple Working With Consumer Reports on MacBook Pro's Battery Issue (cnet.com)
Last week, Consumer Reports concluded that it won't be recommending Apple's new MacBook Pro models. The American magazine published since 1936 by Consumers Union, a nonprofit organization, cited inconsistent battery issues for not recommending the MacBook Pro for the first time in its history. Apple's VP of Marketing has since addressed the report, saying they are working with the magazine to understand the results. From a report: Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller followed up with a tweet late Friday saying Apple is "working with CR to understand their battery tests. Results do not match our extensive lab tests or field data." Consumer Reports' review says that in-house testing revealed wild fluctuations in battery life for unplugged MacBook Pro computers. In the case of the 13-inch model without a Touch Bar, for example, battery life ranged from 19.5 hours to just 4.5 hours. Apple says the devices should operate for up to 10 hours between charges.
This is not new news. People have been complaining of bad battery life well before Consumer Reports: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/.... The bottom line is it shouldn't have such drastically different test results with the same repeated tests. Whether it's the batteriesSafari or otherwise, it should be at least consistant. http://www.macrumors.com/2016/...
This problem (after a few years, battery life being half what it was when new) has pretty much been solved with larger battery capacities and lower power components. Lithium-ion batteries do degrade this way based on the number of charge/discharge cycles. But the depth of discharge matters more. A battery which will only last 300+ cycles when charged to 100% and discharged until dead, can last 1200+ cycles when charged to 75% and discharged to just 25% before being recharged. The relationship is non-linear - reducing the cycle depth by half results in about triple the battery longevity. So it isn't just a matter of shallower discharges using the battery less. In other words, the worst thing you can do to the battery is to charge it all the way to 100% and discharge it all the way to 0%.
Most newer batteries integrate this into their design. When they report 100%, the battery is actually at 80% or 90%. When they report 0%, the battery is actually at 10% or 20%. The Li-ion battery packs in EVs are a good example - they're limited between 20%-80% charge, or 15%-85% charge. Many laptops also add software which further limits the charge - stopping the recharge process when the battery reads 80% or 90% (which probably corresponds to 65% - 80% of the battery's real capacity). Couple this with the user making sure s/he never discharges the device completely, and you've eliminated the deep charge/discharge cycles which degrade the battery the most.
In the old days, laptops used a lot of power and batteries were bulky. So manufacturers had to use 100% of the battery's capacity just to eek out 2-3 hour battery lives. This is what led to many of those batteries dying after a few years. Nowadays, battery energy density has improved, and mobile electronics use a lot less power. So manufacturers can put in a small or medium-sized battery in a laptop and still get 5-8 hours using only 60%-80% of the battery's capacity. So they've taken advantage of this to replace the swappable battery with an integrated battery and cut down on weight and size. The charging circuitry limits it so it can't actually charge to 100% or discharge to 0%, thus allowing these integrated batteries to be used for well over 1000 cycles - usually more than enough to last the lifetime of the device.
CR will work with companies regarding details of test conditions and procedures to help them isolate any problems the testing might have turned up (which is probably the case here).
The actual products that are tested though are bought off of store shelves by undercover CR employees posing as regular customers. That way a company can't rig the actual sample of the CR product being tested, unless they're specifically invited by CR to see if the product is defective (which has happened a few times with cars which failed some of CR's minimum safety tests.)
This is one of the reasons I maintain a CR subscription even though the vast majority of their testing is too "average user" to be relevant to me. I think it's incredible valuable to have at least some published reviews based on random samples, instead of manufacturer-provided samples.
Even if people are dumb enough to buy laptops with irreplaceable batteries/memory/storage (as marketing research suggests they are), competitors will be quick to point out why that's not such a hot idea. Three years from now, AppleCare will be running out on these machines (assuming everyone is smart enough to buy extended warranty coverage). At that point, customers will be howling about how their investment decision worked out. I can get 3 years out of a mid-grade Windows or Linux machine and spend a lot less. Or I can go with a top-of-the-line machine and get 4-5 years. If Apple wants to sell disposable hardware, they need to price it as such.
I wouldn't be too surprised to see a state (maybe California) require a consumer warning label about computers with no serviceable parts inside. If it breaks out of warranty, repair is impossible. Most customers don't realize they are buying a disposable computer. Let's see what market research says when the warning labels start to appear.