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Consumer Reports Deck Stacking — or Incompetence — Exposed
Technical Night Owl ^ | January 11th, 2017 | Gene Steinberg

Posted on 01/11/2017 9:47:26 AM PST by Swordmaker

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To: Swordmaker
Consumer Reports blew their credibility in the Suzuki Samurai affair IMO.
41 posted on 01/11/2017 12:07:10 PM PST by CommerceComet (Hillary: A unique blend of incompetence and corruption.)
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To: Gay State Conservative

Please stop.


42 posted on 01/11/2017 12:08:49 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham
Please stop.

Yup,last post.I've made my point and several responses have confirmed my basic position.But consider the OP's tagline and several of his/her responses here.Do they not suggest that I'm not the only who's detected a pattern...and,very possibly,an obsession?

Feel free to respond if you wish but I'm done here.Time to move on to important things...like the repeal of ObamaCare and the enforcement of immigration and residency laws (among other noteworthy issues of the day).

43 posted on 01/11/2017 12:21:13 PM PST by Gay State Conservative (Deplorables' Lives Matter)
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To: Gay State Conservative

Thank you.


44 posted on 01/11/2017 12:38:38 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: Swordmaker
whatever....

It all started when CR reported wildly divergent battery life results, ranging from 3.75 hours up to 19 hours over three tests for each product. The latter is way more than Apple’s estimates, which range up to 10 hours.
45 posted on 01/11/2017 12:42:53 PM PST by stylin19a (Hey obamas-it's Ray Charles time - "Hit the Road Jack"...you know the rest)
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To: personalaccts

Back in the 70s I did washing machine repairs. CR rated a Kenmore as recommended, but did not recommend a Whirlpool, and the Kenmore was a rebadged Whirlpool. Don’t know what goes on under the hood at CR, but I don’t trust their ratings.


46 posted on 01/11/2017 2:00:45 PM PST by Richard Kimball
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To: dfwgator
I want to get the new MacBook Pro, but I like to wait it out for a year to let them work out all the kinks.

Has Apple come out with an accessory kit containing all the cables, external devices that you need to operate the 'portable' laptop?
You're sitting in an airport terminal. You want to look at a DVD or just an SD card, thumbdrive, etc. You have to drag out a certain cable, external device, drive. Crazy!
They really really missed the boat on this one.
Oh, and the backpack large enough to carry all the accessories?

I'm a Mac fanboy but this new MBP ? No thanks. A giant step backwards.
It would almost be easier for me to carry my 21" iMac than these new MBPs.

47 posted on 01/11/2017 3:17:19 PM PST by Vinnie
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To: Gay State Conservative
Time to move on to important things...like the repeal of ObamaCare and the enforcement of immigration and residency laws (among other noteworthy issues of the day).

Here's an idea for you. Stay with the important things of the day, and away from technology threads. Then you won't have to waste valuable time, or stress your apparently non-existent understanding that Free Republic people can multitask.

If you don't like other topics being pursued on Free Republic, you can take your concerns to Jim and John Robinson.

48 posted on 01/11/2017 3:56:06 PM PST by jimtorr
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To: Swordmaker

There was a bug. “It’s a bug that Apple discovered and fixed “. Apple admitted there was a bug, and they issued a fix. All of your spin can’t change reality. And even the writer had to admit the truth in the midst of his attacks on CR.


49 posted on 01/11/2017 6:55:46 PM PST by PAR35
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To: PAR35
There was a bug. “It’s a bug that Apple discovered and fixed “. Apple admitted there was a bug, and they issued a fix. All of your spin can’t change reality. And even the writer had to admit the truth in the midst of his attacks on CR.

Where have I denied there was a bug in a computer system YOU obviously don't use? I am not "spinning" the basic point of these articles which was that Consumer Reports modified a consumer product in such a way that their tests no longer reported on what the consumer's experience with that product would be if the consumer purchased it as the manufacturer presented it!

A factual claim is either true, or it is not. In this instance CR blew it.

Consumer Reports editors thought their readers would want to know how long laptop A's batteries will last on a single charge against laptop B, C, D, and E, each doing an identical set of specific common tasks (none of which, I might point out, was webpage design in the listed protocols which would have to be activated on the Mac to even get to the system tools modification menu.).

These consumers needed to know which out-of-the-box laptops' battery performed longest at each task, not which laptops' battery performed longest after someone turned off system features he thought were superfluous but in actuality may be important to achieving long battery life.

Instead, Consumer Reports recast itself as a Technology Hardware Review magazine and essentially decided to remove the software that differentiates the various computers from each other, by differing means of optimization.

Geeks might have an interest in the performance of just the raw hardware of the competing products, but real consumers are interested in the performance of the entire widget as designed by the manufacturer and as they can buy and use it! They are not interested in a faux product artfully modified by the decisions of Consumer Reports' engineers' very peculiar opinions of what the consumers should interested in.

Basically, what Consumer Reports did was compare Consumer Reports VERSIONS of these laptop, because no one could go buy a MacBook Pro, or a Dell, Sony, or any of the other compared laptops off-the-shelf, a claim CR prides itself in assuring its readers the products the review are to assure CR's independence, that operate in the exact same way the Consumer Reports laptops operated because the tested products were modified and were therefor, no longer representative of the off-the-shelf product!

Nowhere could you buy a Consumer Reports version of these laptops in the retail market. Nowhere. Consumer Reports was comparing NON-EXISTENT products.

50 posted on 01/11/2017 10:26:27 PM PST by Swordmaker (This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue..)
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To: Swordmaker

I remember back in the early 80’s CR called the Coleco Adam the “Computer of the Century”. Yeah, right.

Besides erasing any tape media left in the drive when it was turned on, due to the extreme electromagnetic surge on power-up, the power supply for the computer was located in the attached failure-prone printer. So when your printer died or had to be sent off for repairs, no computing.

Also in the late 70’s CR listed as Dangerous and Unacceptable, the front-wheel drive Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon. The reason was that when the test driver swerved the car as hard as he could in one direction and then as hard as he could in the other, and then let go of the steering wheel, the car did not continue in straight line.

WTF??

Apparently the test driver had no idea about driving a front-wheel drive car.

We had a Horizon from 78 to 84. Put a lot of miles on it with no problems.

Of course that may have been because we never swerved the car from side to side as hard as we could and then let go of the steering wheel.


51 posted on 01/12/2017 12:01:24 AM PST by chaosagent (Remember, no matter how you slice it, forbidden fruit still tastes the sweetest!)
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To: Vinnie
Has Apple come out with an accessory kit containing all the cables, external devices that you need to operate the 'portable' laptop?

Here is one third-party option. There are others.

52 posted on 01/12/2017 12:20:52 PM PST by ReignOfError
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To: personalaccts

I quit listening to CR back when they rigged their testing to intentionally force the Suzuki Samuri they tested to “tip over” in testing. They had to finally fess up to taking extra measures to force the issue (which in turn was a reminder of the similar behavior many years before by Ralph Nader and the Chevrolet Corvair.


53 posted on 01/12/2017 10:12:52 PM PST by TheBattman (If Socialism is so great - explain Venezuela...)
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