Apple’s new MacBook Pro lineup isn’t even a half-year-old and it’s already gone through more scrutiny than probably any other MacBook before it. You just need to do a search on our site here to find articles ranging from battery issues to GPU and peripheral problems. Late last month Consumer Reports released their assessment of the new flagship MacBook Pro lineup and the report wasn’t at all glowing. In Consumer Reports testing, they found the new MacBook Pro’s didn’t live up to their advertised battery life which many users have been complaining about (myself included). Quickly after Consumer Reports published their findings, Apple responded and began working with the company to pinpoint the issue.
Now, just weeks later, Apple has a new beta software update that seems to have fixed the battery woes in their new machines. Consumer Reports has been retesting the machines with this new software update and they are returning with some good news for users. Battery life numbers have dramatically increased and they fall well into the advertised parameters Apple had promised. This has led Consumer Reports to lift its “not recommended” flag to a “recommended” state.
The three MacBook Pros in our labs include two 13-inch models, one with Apple’s new Touch Bar and one without the Touch Bar; and a 15-inch model. (All 15-inch MacBook Pros come with the Touch Bar.) The new average battery-life results are, in order, 15.75 hours, 18.75 hours, and 17.25 hours. We bought the three computers at retail, as we do with other products rated by Consumer Reports, to ensure that we are testing the same models a consumer would buy.
Battery life is highly dependent on the software and processes you’re running so don’t take Consumer Reports numbers to heart. Apple promised 10-hours of battery life under normal usage and you should be getting that once Apple releases the new software update into production. By far, battery life has been the number one complaint of the new MacBook Pro line and we’re glad that Apple is finally responding and that Consumer Reports was able to make it happen faster. Once we have our software update, we will report back if it makes a difference.
What do you think of Consumer Reports new findings? Are you on the new macOS beta? Is it making a difference? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
[button link=”http://www.consumerreports.org/apple/consumer-reports-now-recommends-macbook-pros/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Consumer Reports[/button][button link=”http://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/01/12/macbook-pro-2016-now-recommended-by-consumer-reports/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: TechnoBuffalo[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
