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Consumer Reports Stands By Its Verdict, Won't Recommend Apple's MacBook Pro (mashable.com)

Posted by msmash on from the nope,-no-sir dept.

Consumer Reports took many by surprise last week -- certainly Apple -- when it said it doesn't recommend the company's new MacBook Pro models. The American magazine, which has garnered credibility over 80 years of its existence, said battery life on Apple's new laptops was all over the place -- hitting 19 hours in a test, but less than four hours in another. Last week, Apple's VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller insisted that Consumer Reports' findings didn't match the company's field data, and that Apple was working with Consumer Reports to understand its review. Now Consumer Reports has responded: The nonprofit organization is standing by its initial verdict in which it did not give the MacBook Pro (2016) its "recommended" rating. The organization has now said it doesn't think re-running the tests will change anything. "In this case, we don't believe re-running the tests are warranted for several reasons. First, as we point out in our original article, experiencing very high battery life on MacBooks is not unusual for us -- in fact we had a model in our comparative tests that got 19 hours," it said. "Second, we confirmed our brightness with three different meters, so we feel confident in our findings using this equipment. Finally, we monitor our tests very closely. There is an entry logged every minute, so we know from these entries that the app worked correctly," it added.

6 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Apple wouldn't give us money by hey! · · Score: 5, Informative

    CR does not accept vendor payments, nor does it accept advertising.

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  2. Re: Consumer Reports I trust more than Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    They're not Apple's QA department. Why should they care why the new Macs aren't performing acceptability? All they need to know is that they don't. It's Apple's job to find out why and fix it.

    This is of course one of the many dangers of using an OS with only one hardware supplier. I can't understand how anyone could not see what a stupid idea that is...

  3. Re: Apple wouldn't give us money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Arstechnica's test shows similar results to Consumer Reports. Stop parroting Apple's head PR guy.

    Under a very basic web browsing test, which the author admits that "this test is probably actually too light", the Mac book pro got good battery life.

    https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/charts.010.png

    But under a heavier test using webgl, the Mac book pro got 2hrs 13m

    https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/charts.011.png

  4. Re: Apple wouldn't give us money by hey! · · Score: 5, Informative

    Look in a copy of CR magazine. Notice what's missing? Advertisements. Same with the website.

    Also Consumer's Union is a non-profit which publishes its financial statements. The income statement is particularly simple in that operating revenue comes from the following sources: subscriptions, newsstand sales, tax-deductable grants, and interest.

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  5. Re:Consumer Reports I trust more than Apple by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 3, Informative

    The problem is not "over inflated battery life" - and actually, Apple has (in the past) gotten kudos for being one of the few companies that consistently provided reasonably accurate battery numbers for their products.

    No, the issue is there's something as-yet-unexplained which, under some circumstances, causes the battery life of the newest MacBook Pros to plummet to ridiculously low levels. Consumer Reports saw it in their testing; but, even before that, some customers were experiencing it (and justifiably complaining).

    See my Post here, for a possible cause.

  6. Re:Consumer Reports I trust more than Apple by bsolar · · Score: 4, Informative

    First of all, no, they are under no obligation. They would still likely do it since it would be in the best interest of their subscribers and of their reputation.

    Furthermore, there is no official fix from Apple yet. As far as I know there are rumors of some beta version faring better, but nothing more. CR didn't say they won't re-test the devices if/when Apple releases a fix, they won't re-test the devices *as they are* since they are confident of their previous test's methodology and findings.

    Note that CR shared the diagnostic files from their tests with Apple and will definitely re-test the devices as soon as Apple claims they figured out the battery problems and fixed them. Until then they trust their results and find a re-test pointless.

    So no, there is nothing suspicious on the part of CR.