New MacBook Pros Becoming First-Ever MacBooks Not To Earn Consumer Reports ‘Recommended’ Ratings No Surprise – The ‘Book Mystique Extra
I’m feeling somewhat vindicated by Consumer Reports’ determination that the late 2016 MacBook Pros will be the first-ever Apple MacBook models to not receive ‘recommended’ ratings from the influential watchdog organization based on its independent testing.
I’ve been pretty rough on Apple’s new Pro models in recent ‘Book Mystique columns here on MacPrices. They, along with the 12-inch Retina MacBook are also the first-ever MacBooks that don’t entice me as a potential user. The Consumer Reports announcement reinforces my impressions of the 13 and 15-inch Pro models’ manifold shortcomings.
In their evaluations Consumer Reports’ labs determined that wile the new Pro MacBooks scored high on display quality and performance, battery life, the three new MacBook Pro models. the models varied dramatically from one trial to another, with performance fluctuating wildly even with the same computer. For example hey report that in a series of three consecutive tests, the 13-inch Touch Bar model delivered for 16 hours of runtime in the first trial, 12.75 hours in a second, and a miserable 3.75 hours in the third, while the Touch Bar-less 13-inch base model ran a commendable 19.5 hours in one trial but plummeted to 4.5 hours in the next.
Consumer Reports states: “After factoring together our complete test results, Consumer Reports finds that all three MacBook Pro laptops fail to meet our standards for recommended models.” noting that this failure is a radical departure the battery performance of previous MacBook models which have typically tested with battery runtimes much longer than the Apple has claimed — for instance, a previous model 13-inch MacBook Pro that lasted 19 hours in Consumer Reports testing.
Check out this blog by Consumer Reports’ Jerry Beilinson for more information.
Also on this topic:
The Great New MacBook Pro Letdown And What It Means Going Forward – The ‘Book Mystique
