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Consumer Reports cannot recommend new MBP

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Mobster1983

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Sep 8, 2011
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This article just popped up on my news feed. Consumer Reports states they cannot recommend the new MBP (all three models) due to widely varying battery results in their tests. Essentially the laptops would run for significantly different lengths of time in the same test (e.g., between 16 hours and then 3.75 for the 13" TB using the same test).

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/macbook-pros-fail-earn-consumer-190350939.html

I personally am very happy with my 15" MBP. Love the keyboard and my battery life has seemed consistent at over 10 hours. But this is a very interesting report and definitely confirms many reports on here of varying battery life. Hopefully this is something Apple can fix with a software update, but definitely not good.

*interesting fact, the report seems to indicate that Chrome is giving must longer and consistent battery life than Safari. I know for me, Safari has been acting very strange on many websites (like not letting me click the "login" button on a couple of banking websites, when switching to Chrome works right away).
 
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Mobster1983 said:
*interesting fact, the report seems to indicate that Chrome is giving must longer and consistent battery life than Safari. I know for me, Safari has been acting very strange on many websites (like not letting me click the "login" button on a couple of banking websites, when switching to Chrome works right away).
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Weird, that's like the opposite finding of most people on this forum.

I cannot recommend this Consumer Report.
 
Thank you for this article. The reports over here made me puzzling for a long time. Finally someone did some research and shed some light into this topic. It's consistent with all the user reports, the youtube reviews and most importantly the notebookcheck review. This makes me hope, that the issues are purely software related.
I'm not technically experienced in this area, but could this be an issue due to specific characteristics of their battery design?
 
Mobster1983 said:
This article just popped up on my news feed. Consumer Reports states they cannot recommend the new MBP (all three models) due to widely varying battery results in their tests. Essentially the laptops would run for significantly different lengths of time in the same test (e.g., between 16 hours and then 3.75 for the 13" TB using the same test).

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/macbook-pros-fail-earn-consumer-190350939.html

I personally am very happy with my 15" MBP. Love the keyboard and my battery life has seemed consistent at over 10 hours. But this is a very interesting report and definitely confirms many reports on here of varying battery life. Hopefully this is something Apple can fix with a software update, but definitely not good.

*interesting fact, the report seems to indicate that Chrome is giving must longer and consistent battery life than Safari. I know for me, Safari has been acting very strange on many websites (like not letting me click the "login" button on a couple of banking websites, when switching to Chrome works right away).
Click to expand...


Could you share your usage, brightness that you re using?
 
motime said:
That isn't true, lots of people have reported sub par battery life even on this forum, which tends to be extremely biased in favour of apple.
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I'm not talking about battery life in general. I'm talking about Chrome using more power than Safari in normal use. CR found the opposite, which doesn't jive with most user reports here.

They also got some crazy battery figures in general (16hrs and 12.75hrs on the 13" TB, really?) so this whole report seems very confusing.
 
I had to really force mine into the garbage can, as there was no room, after reading this.

(can was already filled with other things they couldn't recommend)
 
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This weeks report from Bloomberg Businessweek sheds some light on the development of this new MacBook Pro. It is in some sense an unfinished product, because of how Apple started development. Initially, the idea was to develop it with more battery being the dominant part of the chassis, but some flaws made that iteration fail in internal test. The company seemed to have scrambled because they were placing their bets on this particular model, but had to go to plan B instead. Plan B is what you have until Apple comes up with a better battery solution or works out whatever kink that caused the initial iteration to fail. Unfortunately, that plan B will require purchasing a new MacBook Pro when the time comes.

I personally see Apple reverting to last years chassis for the 2017 MacBook Pro. Its not like they have never done it before, remember the memory stick shuffle nobody liked?
 
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yeah that exact opposite of what I experienced on 3 new MBPs. I am now settled into the 3rd one nicely getting 8-9 consistently. But honestly this article produced opposite results of what most people here have experienced. Either way I guess it's good news since they sent the results to Apple.
 
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.
 
democracyrules said:
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.
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Mine is perfect, no issues at all. Great laptop, awesome update, very good battery life. Boooyah.
 
xmonkey said:
:rolleyes:

The point is blanket statements like the one that poster made are dumb.
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I don't know, it's not like they claimed that every single user has every single problem. There's certainly a lot of things that seem to affect a significant number of users, though, and I don't think it's particularly out of line to refer to the product as apparently having some widespread problems. The actual percentage of Pinto owners who encountered a specific problem with the tendency to burst into flames was way under 1%. Of the MBPs I've seen people I know outside these forums buy, a majority have had a serious problem of one sort or another.
 
therealseebs said:
I don't know, it's not like they claimed that every single user has every single problem. There's certainly a lot of things that seem to affect a significant number of users, though, and I don't think it's particularly out of line to refer to the product as apparently having some widespread problems. The actual percentage of Pinto owners who encountered a specific problem with the tendency to burst into flames was way under 1%. Of the MBPs I've seen people I know outside these forums buy, a majority have had a serious problem of one sort or another.
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Good luck to all 2016 MacBook Pro owners!! They paid high amount of money with all issues they have to deal with.
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Really now?

You also can't backup your claim that it's a 'significant' amount of users who are experiencing a lot of problems. People posting on internet forums and the handful of people you know in real life who have some issues are not enough to qualify such a statement. Most people who've bought the new MBP a) don't even post online about it in the first place and b) rarely go rushing to the internet to proclaim they have no issues if they're enjoying their machine.
 
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Mr. Dee said:
This weeks report from Bloomberg Businessweek sheds some light on the development of this new MacBook Pro. It is in some sense an unfinished product, because of how Apple started development. Initially, the idea was to develop it with more battery being the dominant part of the chassis, but some flaws made that iteration fail in internal test. The company seemed to have scrambled because they were placing their bets on this particular model, but had to go to plan B instead. Plan B is what you have until Apple comes up with a better battery solution or works out whatever kink that caused the initial iteration to fail. Unfortunately, that plan B will require purchasing a new MacBook Pro when the time comes.

I personally see Apple reverting to last years chassis for the 2017 MacBook Pro. Its not like they have never done it before, remember the memory stick shuffle nobody liked?
Click to expand...
I disagree with that article.

The current 2016 MBP passed all internal tests, how can we call it an unfinished product?

Every project must have a deadline which is October 2016. The plan A was finished, the better plan B was unfinished, so Apple released the finished version. There is nothing wrong.

That plan B must be a prototype of the next 2017 MBP. 2nd gen product is always better than 1st gen, but it doesn't mean the 1st gen is unfinished.
 
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Count Blah said:
The RFD is strong with this one.

So you are saying that they are holding their MBP wrong?
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I'm saying, reviewers are not always self critical enough to know what they are doing wrong.

We still have reviewers using rangefinder cameras with one eye shut - 70 years after their invention. How many will put their hands up and admit being so goofy in this age of overnight internet instaexpert?

Today we have this YouTube qualified tech guru Linus giving his review of the MBP. He can't adapt to the keyboard. The human body can adapt to marathon running, weight lifting, living at high altitude, etc. But he can't adapt to a simple thing like a keyboard...so it must be the machine's fault.
 
So I think this is horrible press for Apple. I think it's actually probably a good sign that the life changed so much on the same tests though. To me that sounds like software issue. Who knows, I get 10 hours battery browsing on mine so really not too worried about it. This can stop a lot of sales though so Apple has to respond to this one I think.
 
xmonkey said:
I'm not talking about battery life in general. I'm talking about Chrome using more power than Safari in normal use. CR found the opposite, which doesn't jive with most user reports here.

They also got some crazy battery figures in general (16hrs and 12.75hrs on the 13" TB, really?) so this whole report seems very confusing.
Click to expand...
I don't have corroboration yet but I think Chrome has been revised for the Mac.
 
xmonkey said:
You also can't backup your claim that it's a 'significant' amount of users who are experiencing a lot of problems. People posting on internet forums and the handful of people you know in real life who have some issues are not enough to qualify such a statement. Most people who've bought the new MBP a) don't even post online about it in the first place and b) rarely go rushing to the internet to proclaim they have no issues if they're enjoying their machine.
Click to expand...

It is certainly theoretically possible that this is just a statistical anomaly.

But I've been buying macs for a long time now, and so have a whole lot of my computer geek friends. In the last 20 years, before this machine, I'd seen one Mac get returned, and that was a Performa for a power user who wanted a 7500. And then there's the 2016, and I've seen a half-dozen or more diehard Mac fans get offended and return them, buy old models, or switch platforms.

It's possible that this is purely an anomaly. But it's also possible that the large variety of complaints I'm seeing, which are completely unlike complaints I've seen for any previous Mac, mean something. So, do you have better data? Because if not, I'm gonna go with what the limited evidence I have available says, rather than imagining that theoretically it could be a huge statistical anomaly that just happens to include literally every Mac user I know who isn't someone on these forums that I've never met in any other context.
 
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I've definitely had issues with Safari draining a significant amount of battery with no rhyme or reason. A quick reboot fixes the issue, but coupled with the MBP hanging when waking it up with an external monitor, random Touch Bar glitches, and (just today) crashing while asleep, then losing my fingerprints, this is one of the first Apple products I've owned that have experienced so many bugs. It's a shame because when it works, it works fantastically well. These issues are frustrating and hinder the overall user experience, and NOT what I expected out of a multi-thousand dollar machine.
 
I've gotten lots of tiny issues on the software/UI side within a day of owning it (Day 2 today). Battery life on mine seems fine (thankfully), but I won't recommend the MBP to my friends until the glitches are ironed out. I would've bought the 2015 with discrete graphics if they still sell them.
 
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