
Consumer Reports Now Recommends MacBook Pros - - lladnar
http://www.consumerreports.org/apple/consumer-reports-now-recommends-macbook-pros/
======
DoodleBuggy
> "The new average battery-life results are, in order, 15.75 hours, 18.75
> hours, and 17.25 hours."

This is even more of a red flag than the original tests. On what planet do you
get 18 hours of battery on a single charge? Or even half of that?

Something is way off here.

~~~
dbbk
This is only browsing web pages in one tab though right? Not even running
multiple apps. Nobody does that anyway. I for instance have 50+ tabs open on
any given day.

~~~
kevinherron
Normal people don't have 50+ tabs open, ever. Your idea of who represents
"nobody" is upside down.

~~~
Veratyr
I think you have an idealistic view of the way normal people use computers,
making an absolute statement like "ever".

Here's an example of a "normal" person with 1250 of them:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/4urdh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/4urdhi/how_many_tabs_is_too_many/)

It's not a unique occurrence:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/5iixe...](https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/5iixeu/213_tabs/)

~~~
kevinherron
Don't you think the fact that it was submitted to /r/talesfromtechsupport
implies that it was something of note, and that a handful of people offering
of anecdotes of their own bizarre encounter with a tab hoarder support my
claim that it's not the way most people use a browser?

~~~
Veratyr
My point is that you didn't say "it's not the way most people use a browser",
you said that normal people don't "ever" use that many tabs. You made an
overly absolute statement and I'm refuting it.

~~~
kevinherron
I concede that. But your initial use of "nobody" is also overly absolute.

~~~
Veratyr
That was someone else, not me.

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rbanffy
So we all moved to Linux for nothing? ;-)

~~~
2bluesc
Not so sure people that take Consumer Reports seriously run Linux.

~~~
scarlac
I honestly don't see any logical negative connection between those two groups
of people. Actually, I see many potential good reasons why someone running
Linux would care to listen to them. Care to explain your thinking?

~~~
2bluesc
Out of the box, most Linux boxes are broke, especially with new hardware when
compared to the status quo Macbook Pro. You have to wrestle with kernels,
hardware, software updates, different pkg repos, GPU power management, GPU
drivers, touchpad, HiDPI, Thunderbolt, etc. (HN: please spare me the drama of
quoting this list and nitpicking, you know a subset of it is true.)

My Dell precision 5510 (optionally ships from Dell with Ubuntu) takes an hour
or two of work from a competent Linux nerd to be on par with a Macbook. In the
past I owned a System76 Galago Ultra Pro which prides itself on being Linux
ready. Instead it shipped with impressively miserable battery life, "meh"
keyboard, and no UEFI (what year is it@!?).

If Consumer Reports were to review either of those laptops, they would give it
a failing grade relative to a Macbook Pro.

Yet Linux still thrives fueled by the DIY or open source communities. These
communities look for different thing out of the box. Furthermore, the person
who consider Linux would have probably discovered the Safari bug LONG before
it took Apple + Consumer Reports to find the real cause. This person would
probably run Chrome or Firefox until the inevitable fix rolled out from Apple.

~~~
nkkollaw
So, the reason for the inconsistent battery life was a Sufari bug (I just
scanned the article, didn't read the whole thing)?

~~~
2bluesc
Pretty much[0]:

> After working with Apple over the holidays, Consumer Reports now says that
> the problem was caused by an "obscure" Safari bug specific to page caching,
> which the publication disables when it runs its battery tests. To test
> battery life, Consumer Reports sets laptop screens to a specific brightness
> level and then loads a series of webpages in the laptop's default browser
> (Safari in this case) in a loop until the battery dies. Apple suggests that
> disabling browser caching for a test like this doesn't reflect real-world
> use, but it does make sense for a synthetic test—users will continually read
> new pages rather than visiting the same static pages over and over again, so
> Consumer Reports wants to make sure that its test is actually downloading
> data over the network rather than simply reading cached data from the disk.

[0] [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/01/consumer-reports-
will-r...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/01/consumer-reports-will-re-test-
macbook-pro-batteries-after-apple-fixes-bugs/)

~~~
nkkollaw
What about users that reported bad battery life?

~~~
rbanffy
Migrating to a new Mac puts some stress on battery while everything is indexed
for Spotlight or backed up to a Time Capsule. That's why Macs will tend to
have bad battery life in their first few days.

~~~
nkkollaw
Meh.

Doesn't everyone just restores from a previous backup? Why would one start
from scratch?

Most importsntly, I doubt a developer wouldn't see there's a process draining
the battery.

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wklauss
I'm quite surprised with the battery life numbers they are reporting:

\- Macbook Pro Escape: 18.75 hours \- Macbook Pro 13": 15.25 hours \- Macbook
Pro 15": 17.25 hours

I've tested both the Macbook Pro Escape and the Macbook Pro 15" and under
_very_ light work load (web, email...) I'd say they were closer to 9 and 8
hours, which, by the way, I find pretty decent considering weight and
dimmensions.

I really don't know what methodolgy CR uses, but seems to me that is not very
realistic.

~~~
ncw96
According to this page, Consumer Reports tested this computer at 100 nits
brightness, which is 20% of the maximum brightness. This is probably a lower
brightness level than the average user, contributing to the battery lasting
longer than expected.

[http://www.consumerreports.org/laptops/macbook-pros-fail-
to-...](http://www.consumerreports.org/laptops/macbook-pros-fail-to-earn-
consumer-reports-recommendation/)

------
dogismycopilot
The thing is, I would actually tolerate a larger body/battery if it would
realistically get me 9 hours. I know that it's not sexy, and Apple needs to
retain its image.

I would think that laptops with insane battery lives would be desirable,
particularly in the business/enterprise/travel markets. Maybe not.

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RichardHeart
They invented this super cool tech to increase battery life, called larger
batteries. For some reason every time the processor gets more efficient, the
battery gets smaller. Soon we'll be able to use phones as chinese throwing
stars.

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anon363764
Still unrepairable and unupgradable (unlike previous MBP non-Retina), foisting
ultimate, overpriced Apple control over a previously much more flexible
product. Also, the touchbar and new keyboard aren't very practical.

When there is a Retina model with RAM DIMMs, changable SSDs and superior
keyboard, I'd consider looking at MBPs again.

~~~
seanp2k2
Battery too. The hilarious thing is that they could do all of that and
probably only add a few mm thickness. Check out the Dell XPS or Thinkpad X1
Carbon lines.

Also hilarious to me is how thick the dongles are, and how the power brick is
the same (other than now needing an expensive proprietary Apple USB-C USB 2.0
higher-than-spec power delivery cable which is sold separately from the actual
brick and an extension cable which is also now sold separately).

