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Consumer Reports Reverses Course, Recommends MacBook Pro Following New Testing After Apple Bug Fix

nouspa said:
Me. Light home & work usage (internet, email, youtube).
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May I ask - where do you have the brightness set - thinking that is their issue? I bought 2 touch bar models for my kids (13" added 16 GB). They get about 20% less battery life than my oldest daughters machine (2015 13" rMBP - also with 16GB). My kids use theirs on full bright and usually get around 6 hours for school (includes videos). They got 6 1/2 hours watching Netflix movies (again full brightness). My kids love the new models and have no complaints but I'm wondering if they are doing something wrong to get so much less battery life. Apple told us to expect 20% less battery life on these (compared to my daughter's 2015 model). They also told me that using full brightness uses a LOT more battery. They use Safari. Thanks
 
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Xombie11 said:
17.25 hours on the 15"? Insane. Mine has never lasted more than 5 hours. Then again, I'm using (the superior to Safari) Chrome browser. Is it really that much of a battery hog? Like another user posted, I can't even imagine this machine lasting 17 hours with the screen on.
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(Superior to Safari) Chrome browser? That's why you're only getting 5 hours :)
 
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manu chao said:
If you remember the initial results, they also included 15+ hours of battery life in some test runs. So what you see here is the removal of the bug that intermittently reduced the battery life significantly from 15+ hours under a light load.

The deeper message here is that Intel and Apple have managed to reduce battery consumption under idle or light load very significantly. Essentially, when not needed various parts of the CPU, motherboard and OS can go into something like a sleep mode. The problem with these advances is that the power consumption in idle mode and under full throttle now probably exceeds a more than 10x differential. This means that actual power consumption will vary dramatically from user to user and application to application. And that any bug that disturbs this 'sleep' has very large consequences. And one might ask whether any real system with many applications and with minor problems accumulating will be highly unlikely to allow these advanced power-saving measures to become active.
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Yeah this test is really more of testing how efficient the display is, and apparently it's pretty efficient. Especially at the low testing value.
 
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Been using Apple hardware since the 80's, then into the 90's and so on. It is a sad day to see where Apple is heading once again. When Steve Jobs passed, it almost felt that the essence that made up Apple left with him.

Remember when He was initially ousted from Apple and the company lost its way and going downhill. Then he retuned and turned things around. Now that there is no way of him ever coming back, without some fresh blood and thinking I feel this company is heading for rough times.
 
Markoth said:
You're linking the second half of the second sentence, with the first sentence, which the original post did not do.
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Grammatically it does. Not sure if you took English in college but the first sentence is descriptive of an event and those implications, which are then drawn to connect the second subject, Chrome users.

If he didn't mean it, that's fine, he just wrote it like he did. Poorly written if that's the case.
 
Wild-Bill said:
wow.

Can't believe CR caved and retested.

You can do all the retests in the world and spin your PR till the cows come home, Apple. It's not going to change the fact that the new MacBook 'Pro' is a turd. Polish it all you want. It's still a turd.

If Apple had put 1/2 the effort they did in designing new emoji's into developing these new machines perhaps we'd have a better product.
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so you have one then?
 
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If only Apple cared about yearly updates of every Mac model of hardware, the amount of energy they put into this Consumer Reports problem dwarfs the energy they put into their entire computer line.

terrible how they don't care about the Mac product line.
 
macTW said:
"Apple's software isn't up to scratch... at least not for chrome users."

You clearly blame Apple and never mention any blame of google.
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What is that quote?! :eek: You've just written what you thought I said. Read my post.
 
15-18 hours battery goes beyond impressive and seems...wrong? Is that even remotely close to any real-world usage scenario? Man, if that's accurate I may change my mind on buying one of these, that's crazy. Also odd that the 15" gets significantly better battery life than the 13" (both with touch bar)...bigger battery, I guess.

Battery life average: 15-18 hours
Battery life playing video in Chrome: 15-18 minutes
 
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leman said:
It was very unprofessional of CR to release the first version of the review, where it was obvious that the results were not representative. But 15+ hours? Come on... Thats just as ridiculous... only shows that their test is unrealistic.
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It sounds like there is about a 6x difference in power consumption between the machine idle at low brightness, and the machine at max CPU and GPU usage at full brightness. So someone might get 20 hours with the machine completely idle, or a bit over 3 hours running something like Creative Suite.
 
Was there a parcel of bills left behind the water pipes in the bus depot locker room earlier this week?
 
Tompkinson said:
When you write "Apples software really isn't up to scratch anymore" - one could get the impression you're saying it's Apple's fault .
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Chrome isn't Apples software. And all I said was that this doesn't tell the story for Chrome. Apparently the original reports do.
 
Good that Consumer Reports held out without reversing course until Apple submitted an updated OSX for the Mac. If Apple had their way, they would have liked CR to withdraw their review without making any changes.
 
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KPOM said:
Not Apple's fault that Google refuses Apple's offer to help them optimize Chrome's code for OS X.
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Chrome runs better than Safari, so not sure what Apple would contribute. If it wasn't for iCloud and keychain I'd have ditched safari long ago.
 
Hmmm....I rec'd my 13-inch MBP with touch bar in November. The battery life was terrible. 5 hours max, connected to wifi, reading pages online, watchng a few youtube videos. I returned in on 1/3/2017....no questions asked. Too much $$ for that type of performance. I question CR's methodology...I'm a real-world user.
 
flaw600 said:
"at least" is a linker between your previous thought and the upcoming thought. The way that you phrased it made it come across as you accusing Apple for Chrome's problems - something that multiple people have commented on when describing your wording.
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Yes, "at least" Apples software is fixed now, but the tests don't tell the story for Chrome.
I'm sorry, I didn't consider those who thought "Apples software" was referring to Google Chrome when I spent 10 seconds typing that.
 
Wahoo!
As for now, there is a solution for identical batt issues with the "just a few" quadrillion iPhone 5/6/6S's...
 
Tompkinson said:
Yes, yes. everybody knows that, and everybody knows you did not mean to write what you wrote in the way you wrote it. Give up explaining your words , It's fine. Have a nice evening.
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I'm not sure they do, but my confusion lies with the fact that it could be misinterpreted in that way. "it doesn't tell the story for chrome users" doesn't say "but they still haven't done anything for Chrome users".
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skids929 said:
First off Chrome is Googles issue not Apples...And Apple software is some of the most well written software known to mankind! Honestly how anyone can use MacOS and not see the HUGE differences between it and windows is beyond me.

I am fascinated daily when I use my MBP how well everything works and how well the software controls the hardware. THAT is the difference between Apple and everyone else. Had this battery issue been a Windows issue it would never have been fixed properly and they can't send fixes like Apple can because the OS is on so many different types of hardware. I couldn't disagree more this your statement, the software is second to none.
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You've misunderstood my statement.
Apples software isn't up to scratch in (terms of reliability, as that was the issue with the tests and other 2016 MBP issues)
I never said Chrome was Apples issue. It's Googles, I can't think of someone on this forum that wouldn't know that. If you look closely there is a period separating "Apples software really isn't up to scratch anymore." and "At least this is fixed now but it doesn't tell the story for Chrome users."
 
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