2016 MacBook Pro Denied Recommendation From Consumer Reports Due to Battery Life Inconsistencies

[DrumApple]

Good, hope they wake up and at least acknowledge the issue. Although from the sounds of it, with all the inconsistency, it sounds like the battery manufacturer could be providing faulty batteries and it's just luck of the draw who gets them. Still no excuse...

Just bought a non-touchbar MBP today, it will be going straight back if it has these battery issues.

 

[pat500000]

It's a good wake up call.

 

[iriejedi]

Ouch... Hopefully this will provide a much needed reality check to Apple and they can get their act together for next year's model.

larger drive, more memory, click click click for upgrades... where is THICKER BODY AND LARGER BATTERY option to raise the price - make THICKER a margin mover!!!!! Thinner is not in fashion any more...

 

[Uplift]

No issues here, I think it's a great notebook, really happy with it... only annoyance is the hollow tinny sound of the trackpad click. Hardly a deal breaker though.

 

[ironpony]

This happened a few years ago with one of the phones, problem (software I believe) will be fixed and new consumer report released.

Batteries - someone should make a good one! or more emoji's.

 

[btrach144]

The train is coming off the rails. Conductor Tim Cook is asleep at the brakes.

 

[DrumApple]

The irony is that not a single person on this planet complained the 2015 was too thick. I haven't met anybody online or offline who said they wished it was thinner. Yet they trimmed it down along with the battery.

Yep, their obsession of anorexia is sickening. There comes a point where you have optimal thickness. It didn't turn out so well for Barbie...

 

[Naraxus]

It's a good wake up call.

One whose findings that Tim Cook will completely ignore and Phil Schiller will pooh-pooh and say that they are "not representative of Apple's findings"

 

[discounteggroll]

Shot through the heart you give love a bad name...

 

[fermat-au]

Weird. No major problems here on ours, it seems on par with my previous MacBook Pro's.

Anything to get people talking about Consumer Reports though I guess.

Weird. A friend of mine had a Samsung Note 7 and then a replacement Samsung Note 7, neither caught on fire or had any problems.

Anything to get people talking about how bad the Samsung Note 7 is.

 

[69Mustang]

Well crap - now I'm torn. I generally do the opposite of what Consumer Reports recommends as I've had horrible experience with their recommendations in the past, but I had already passed on the new rMBP. Looks like I might have to reconsider it. As for the testing, the results from Consumer Reports seems very odd and I suspect that something is flawed in their testing methodology (unsurprising) as it just doesn't seem like someone would see such a drastic variation in battery life like that.

Excerpt from CR - "For the battery test, we download a series of 10 web pages sequentially, starting with the battery fully charged, and ending when the laptop shuts down. The web pages are stored on a server in our lab, and transmitted over a WiFi network set up specifically for this purpose. We conduct our battery tests using the computer’s default browser—Safari, in the case of the MacBook Pro laptops.

During the tests, we set each laptop screen to remain on. We use an external meter to set the display brightness to 100 nits—a typical level you might use indoors or out. And, we turn off any automatic brightness adjustment in the laptop’s settings.

We also update every computer's operating system before we begin any testing. We began our tests several weeks ago, but repeated the battery tests using macOS Sierra 10.12.2 after it was released. We saw no difference in the results.

Increasingly, we see that the performance of all kinds of products—not just computers and smartphones—can be influenced by software updates. If Apple updates its software in a way that the company claims will substantively change battery performance, we will conduct fresh tests.

Once our official testing was done, we experimented by conducting the same battery tests using a Chrome browser, rather than Safari. For this exercise, we ran two trials on each of the laptops, and found battery life to be consistently high on all six runs. That’s not enough data for us to draw a conclusion, and in any case a test using Chrome wouldn’t affect our ratings, since we only use the default browser to calculate our scores for all laptops. But it’s something that a MacBook Pro owner might choose to try.

Consumer Reports has shared diagnostic files pulled from all three computers with Apple in the hope that this will help the company diagnose and fix any problem. We will report back with any updates."

Cursory glance says they didn't do anything they don't do with any laptop test. They sent their data to Apple so maybe Apple will confirm your theory.

 

[pat500000]

One whose findings that Tim Cook will completely ignore and Phil Schiller will pooh-pooh and say they are "not representative of Apple's findings"

Regardless, people do read and take notes.

 

[anzio]

Weird. A friend of mine had a Samsung Note 7 and then a replacement Samsung Note 7, neither caught on fire or had any problems.

Anything to get people talking about how bad the Samsung Note 7 is.

Except these cases popped up with safety regulators and other official organizations. When it's hearsay and a potentially flawed testing methodology (19 hours!? And it's hidden so there's no real verification), it's quite a bit different. And this is a usability issue rather than a public safety issue. I haven't been banned from bringing my amazing MacBook Pro on my flight.

Sad attempt to bring down one of the best selling laptops of the year. Genuinely hope people get their back ordered ones soon.

 

[dfelix]

Can we stop calling this a "MBP Battery" issue?

Obviously some piece of sw is draining the battery.
Could be macOS, a driver or any 3rd app that simply behaves bad.

So far I'm not seeing this behaviour on my 15" MB Pro so the hw is obviously not the problem.

Edit: the report actually made quit clear that Safari is the killer. With Chrome "we ran two trials on each of the laptops, and found battery life to be consistently high on all six runs.".

No.

Why didn't people complain like this for the 2015 one?

Oh I have a guess. This one has a battery issue, the other one didn't as much.

Apple's anorexia is biting it in the ass, and it's side effects are awesome. I just want to see that reality distortion field crash and burn.

 

[rippley5150]

It is. It's likely due to not being coded correctly. I use Safari for everything. But that's my preference.

I have to use Chrome to stream hockey games and it drains my battery really fast. I use Safari for everything else.

 

[HiRez]

Really seems at this point that Consumer Reports has resorted to the equivalent of click baiting to get attention, by finding some "horrible" problem with any new Apple product (that probably isn't nearly as dire a problem as they make it out to be). It's courageous though.

 

[usersince86]

Apple should from the new trend (awareness) re. human body-types -- the obsession with thin needs to go away.

 

[BWhaler]

Isn't Chrome more of a battery hog than Safari?

Yup.

 

[dogslobber]

Really seems at this point that Consumer Reports has resorted to the equivalent of click baiting to get attention, by finding some "horrible" problem with any new Apple product (that probably isn't nearly as dire a problem as they make it out to be). It's courageous though.

You don't really understand Consumer Reports then.

 

[democracyrules]

I am so glad that I do not have to get burned with this issue. Good luck to all 2016 MacBook Pro owners!! They paid high amount of money with all issues they have to deal with.

 

[Markusxl]

I am so glad that I do not have to get burned with this issue. Good luck to all 2016 MacBook Pro owners!! They paid high amount of money with all issues they have to deal with.

No issues here. Easily the best MacBook Pro I have ever owned. Albeit, I only joined the Mac community in 2006.

Let's not forget that the last generation had image retention, peeling screens, and so many other issues. It was not without its faults, and previous generations had NVIDIA card issues. I've had none with this one. It's all about how Apple handles it, and as we all know, Apple is pretty great with customer service.

 

[dan110]

Just embarrassing.

 

[diddl14]

No.

Why didn't people complain like this for the 2015 one?

Oh I have a guess. This one has a battery issue, the other one didn't as much.

Apple's anorexia is biting it in the ass, and it's side effects are awesome. I just want to see that reality distortion field crash and burn.

C'mon. That's just stupid. The report writes they got 19h (!!!) on a test with the the 13". Obviously not a hw problem and certainly not due to thinner design.

The 2016 models bring a ton of sw updates including new hw drivers. Takes one bad line of code to cause the cpu or gpu to go wild. Since CR seem to be able to reproduce this, it shouldn't take ages for Apple to get this fixed.

 

[canadianreader]

You clearly don't get what you pay for. So the choice is between having a touchbar and a poor battery life the other choice to go with a 2015 macbook pro

 

[ikramerica]

Safari probably has a leak. Or maybe an API for the new hardware has a leak. And it's triggered in some instances. OS X used to have that problem with memory leaks, usually again Safari being the culprit.