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Consumer Reports Stands By Its Verdict, Won't Recommend Apple's MacBook Pro (mashable.com)
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.
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).
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It's not CR's job to find out why the product isn't working as expected/advertised. Their only job is to test the system in controlled and repeatable ways that can be demonstrated and are consistent with current quality assurance methods, and then to report on those tests to their paying subscribers. CR does not take money from anyone but their subscribers and buys off-the-shelf/lot products in order to ensure that there is no appearance of impropriety.
In this case, they were comfortable enough with their results, even after Apple contacted them, to keep them. If they felt that the consistency was in issue with the tests (the same tests/test-systems that are run/used on other computer systems) then they would have stated that and reworked the tests. They have done this in the past when their tests were not working as expected.
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
Doesn't sound defensive to me. Why should they re-run the tests for one particular company?
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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You're behind the times. The newest Macbook Pros have their NAND storage soldered to the mainboard.
The previous iteration of their proprietary SSD had encrypted communications. It took OWC over a year to reverse-engineer it and offer compatible SSD upgrades. I guess Apple took that as a sign that they needed to eliminate any possibility of a third party upgrade. After all, you can't have customers modifying their hardware to their liking.
What exactly does Consumer Reports have to lose by a re-test?
Time. If they start giving some companies special attention, then everyone else will start demanding that, too. If, on the other hand, they stick to the "We give you one chance and that's that" they can actually get a lot more work done.