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

philosopherdog said:
The haters will still hate. This is far and away the best Mac ever made. I've owned tons of them and this is definitely the best. I'm on my Mac all day as a programmer.
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Read their report.
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A bug was triggered when the browser was in the no cached state. Apple fixed that bug. The bug could be virtually anything. You would have to look at their source code to figure out the actual cause.
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WHat was that bug? I dont need to look at the source code... It's common for the fixes to be included in the release notes
 
Lol, looks like Apple hit them on the head to get this result. They shouldn't recommend a laptop that is aimed at the pro market, yet Apple has prioritised features that belong to the ultra portable market.
 
citysnaps said:
Even more interesting is getting battery life times of 12, 14, 16, 18 1/2, and 19 1/2 hours in some trials under a test procedure that's much more rigorous than Apple's, where Apple's published spec was up to 10 hours of battery lifetime.

Makes me wonder if CR actually did any kind of observation, monitoring, and supervision in their test protocols.

This is why some, more likely engineers, have little respect for CR's test procedures.
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Parents? :)
 
if you don't get 15 hours you are using the 'wrong' way.

You are supposed to use it like Tim Cook wants you to use:

1. don't go online
2. keep the screen brighteness at the minimum
3. take a 40 minute break every hour
4 don't use any app

then you 'may' be able to get 15 hours !
 
BootsWalking said:
CR is complete class. Wish there were more independent testing companies instead of all the sponsored crap reviews that pollute the 'net.
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This. It takes guts to stand from the crowd by calling out what the typical Apple lapdog review won't. We even had people on here shouting down CR for refusing to bend to Apple's will but the important thing is that CR identified and highlighted the issue individuals had been struggling with but no other media outlet was willing to report.

Raise a glass to CR and the likes of CNN. An independent media wouldn't exist without them.
 
Bacillus said:
Whaha!
Why recommend a company with enforced-only escalation anyway...
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How about a little less Hatorade?

I sit typing this on my 2012 MacBook Pro, running OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

I don't know what you mean by "Enforced-only Escalation". I CAN install any OS up through Sierra; but I CHOOSE not to right now. So, WHO'S "Enforcing" WHAT, again, exactly?
 
citysnaps said:
Even more interesting is getting battery life times of 12, 14, 16, 18 1/2, and 19 1/2 hours in some trials under a test procedure that's much more rigorous than Apple's, where Apple's published spec was up to 10 hours of battery lifetime.

Makes me wonder if CR actually did any kind of observation, monitoring, and supervision in their test protocols.

This is why some, more likely engineers, have little respect for CR's test procedures.
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The truth is this test is far more lenient than Apple's test. They set the screen at 100 nits which is nearly a quarter the brightness that Apple says they test at. Modern hardware is so efficient at browsing that one of the main power draws in this test is the screen. This result is not that surprising.
 
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amegicfox said:
if you don't get 15 hours you are using the 'wrong' way.

You are supposed to use it like Tim Cook wants you to use:

1. don't go online
2. keep the screen brighteness at the minimum
3. take a 40 minute break every hour
4 don't use any app

then you 'may' be able to get 15 hours !
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Well, this isn't my experience. And I'm betting that, as per usual, it isn't the experience of most typical users either. (They're the majority who are out happily using their computers, and not needing to post negative comments and reviews on tech-blogs...)
I consistently get 10-12hrs out of my 13" TB Pro (2016). I have my screen and keyboard brightness set at 12-clicks from the bottom (75%), and I use Safari for all internet work (no Chrome or FF). My usage is a typical blend of writing, surfing, music, photo-editing, video playback, and video-editing.
I suspect that Apple's "10-hour average" claim is quite reasonable, assuming that Apple software is being used primarily (i.e., Safari instead of Chrome). When people choose to use Chrome or other competing software (which is not optimized by Apple for Apple hardware), or when they use non-standard configurations (as CR did with their first tests) then they can expect lower battery life.
I'm perfectly happy with my machine and usage, after more than a month of daily use. I charge it up overnight at home, and it lasts me through a full day's work until I get back home.
 
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Smells very fishy to me.

And why does it take a consumer reports article to make Apple pay attention? Weren't people complaining about battery life before the article was released?
 
A lot of fanboyish comments about Consumer Reports, but they're one of the few truly independent sources of information that we consumers have going to bat for us. Most people here probably hadn't even heard of them til this report. Are they going to make mistakes? Naturally. I respect them even more now for working with Apple to get to the bottom of this issue.
 
chfilm said:
You're right. I think it has to be software related. I did a test of the physical battery like someone in another thread described the apple hotline did with him, with some terminal wizardry and have it run for over 15 hours.. it worked.
But as soon as I start using it in real life, it drains like NOTHING! It's really absurd after my 13 hours macbook air.
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I think there might be another (hopefully!) SOFTWARE issue that is OCCASIONALLY doing something "inappropriate" with the dGPU. This is based on another MR poster who said that he "caught" his tbMBP 15 getting HOT right about where the GPU is located; but NOTHING was running that would explain the dGPU running, and I believe that it even reported that it was NOT using the dGPU.

So, assuming what you are saying is true, the next time you notice it sucking down the juice for no bloody good reason, AND Activity Monitor doesn't show anything alarming with the CPU usage nor in the "Energy" Tab, see if there is any significant warmth anywhere on the topside of the MBP. If so, report back where the heat is concentrated, and if a Restart "fixes" the high current drain.

It would be nice if you would install Coconut Battery, which will report straight from the battery what the rate of charge/discharge is (called "Usage"), in Watts.
 
Nobody here likes the fact that Apple actually fixed a bug that was exposed by CR's testing methods? I certainly do.

To me it doesn't matter if you value Consumer Reports, or not, but come on folks. Some of you here are really acting like a five year old child. You may find CR stupid, or whatever, that is your good right, but nobody here should have to read baseless insulting rants from anyone. Now. Grow some balls and dump your silly sh*tload of pulp fiction to /dev/null
 
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brentsg said:
It's a standard benchmark so they can compare one machine to another with a standardized workload. It's not some all encompassing test to reflect what you'll get with your usage.
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There are actually a few NON-Apple, Skylake-based laptops boasting similar run-times. IIRC, the 15" HP Spectre X360, which is a MBP-wannabe with about the same "thickness" and a similar W/h rating on the battery and a similar CPU, is one of them.
 
leman said:
Your post is a great example about how facts are bended through incompetent journalism and careless retelling by forum posters who didn't bother to read the entire story. Facts: CR was using a non-default, debugging configuration of Safari that can only be activated via a hidden developer menu. Virtually no users use that configuration. Yes, its Apple's bug in the end, but this bug only affects a very particular, low-profile operation mode and is therefore much less tested than the configuration a normal user would use. CR should know that using non-default settings of a browser cannot be representative for default operation. They have enabled that setting to emulate a particular scenario — and that made sense — however, they should have implemented that scenario at their server's end instead. Their mistake, one that I consider to be very crude for such a well-known organisation — is that they used a non-default configuration of the browser while not mentioning this fact in their original review(!!), observed some conflicting and overall clearly weird results (they even say it themselves!), and with all that, still proceeded to publish the article. I come from the scientific community, and thing like these are considered gross negligence and unprofessionalism. If you get non-systematic results in your experiment, which also conflicts with other related experiments, the only conclusion you can make is that your test is obviously not working properly.
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So CR was testing it wrong? If CR used random data for the web pages, they wouldn't need to disable cache. Am I Right?
 
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