These torture tests are interesting but painful to watch. Consumer Reports also has an article “The science behind smartwatch scratch resistance” about how they did the scratch test and what it means.
Bottom line? “The face of the Apple Watch is definitely harder than that of the Apple Watch Sport. But the performance of the hardened glass of the Sport model is pretty impressive as well.” It sounds like, as long as you take the usual amount of care with your expensive electronics, the Apple Watch screens are pretty durable.
I’d half-expected CR to downgrade the Watch for not having enough USB ports or something.
As they said, these are just preliminary results. There’s still plenty of time for them to say something typical stupid. 🙂
Good. I have hopes for more of their comedy stylings.
Sadly too many people believe the horrible “testing” and “analysis”. They really should stick to washers and dryers etc.
Well, wait until they take that needler thing to the bands. “The glass was very durable, but the bands couldn’t withstand 1.2 billion pounds of pressure. We do not recommend the Apple Watch.”
I remember coming to that same sad conclusion back around 1988. Too bad, because they also provided good information on things like insurance and banking.
Yes, god forbid anyone apply reproducible scientific methods that may threaten to burst the hype bubble around anyone’s fervently religious gadget adoration…
Please enter another room and carefully remove your cranium from your posterior.
Really? That’s your reply?
I guess sometimes I forget that teenagers are on the internet too…
Actually I don’t have any plans to buy the Watch. Additionally, I don’t think many people here consider any Apple product a “religious gadget” either. I don’t think many people anywhere do. It seems only those with an axe to grind keep bringing out the whole “religious” BS.
Regardless of all that, the main point really is how disappointing Consumer Reports reviews have been when it comes to tech gadgets of many kinds, including many other brands. I was also thinking, guessing really, as to what the final review would be, considering the above. The comments, my comments anyway, were not directly related to Apple per se.
CR’s consumer tech reviews have almost always been subject to an established in-house dogma, which skewed recommendations away from genuine consumer concerns towards those of IT nerds.
After having dismissed the original Mac OS as a relatively frivolous use of computing power, my favorite gaffe of theirs was a condemnation of the first iMac (which shipped with built-in Ethernet) for not having the ability to add PCI network cards.
“Reproducible scientific methods,” indeed.
Thought about this, and realized that I am indeed interested in the test-to-destruction depicted in the video that determines durability under measurable conditions… assuming they’ve learned their lesson from having tried to present earlier such tests as scandal-flavored linkbait.
My criticism of their consumer-tech work is mostly about their ability to recognize usability.
I guess I watched the video and saw them demonstrate a more rigorous standard than “I tried scratching this with my car keys and a pocket knife and it was ok.”
I am a fan of Apple products for their attention to detail and
willingness to push the envelope against imagined needs for legacy
support. But while I don’t try to fool myself into thinking I’m getting the most for the least amount of money, there are many who seem to need to mask their insecurity with paper-thin justifications or blanket defense of Apple as simply “the best.”
I am a fan of Apple products for their attention to detail and
willingness to push the envelope against imagined needs for legacy
support. when it comes down to it, I willingly pay more than I absolutely have to simply because I think they exercise superior engineering overall (though hardly perfect, notably with their non-utility applications and cloud services, though both have improved quite a bit in the past few years.)
I have always seen their “in-house dogma” as value and stretching the consumer dollars to reasonably practical limits.
And while your personal sample size was 1, CR is looking at factors such as the current market as a whole including relevant competition and the demonstrated needs of typical users.
No one is suggesting they are infallible.
I agree that this particular video was fairly well done. The watch moved a bit, but I don’t think that effected the results. I was really alluding to what potential future reviews they may make based on the poor past reviews.
As far as Apple products are concerned, I too am a fan of their attention to detail and it is why I own many Apple products.
Having said that, I did buy my iPhone 5 on eBay and for a good price and it was still under warrantee and unlocked. I use MVNO’s for carriers to save money too. I often buy Apple re-furbs too and I get as much life out of each product as I can. As an example, my home computer is a white iMac. One of the last with a core 2 duo and it’s stuck on Lion. Which is fine by me.
I think you’ll find similar stories from many people here.
As far as Apple fans that are insecure and justifying things by saying Apple is best and that simply being the only justification, I find that not to be true either. Anecdotally of course. I actually have found the opposite to be true, most people who buy Apple products expect the best and the attention to detail et al. If Apple stumbles they are taken to task for it.
Of course in any group you’ll find people who are insecure, but I find them to be in the vast minority of Apple fans.
I don’t think your comment about “fervently religious gadget adoration”is correct in most cases and I think the phrase and phrases like it are overused and overall inaccurate.
As was my comment. I actually thought this test was fairly well done and interesting. It’s the future reviews I am weary of. We shall see. I hope I am wrong.
You’re correct; I should have said I wasn’t proclaiming my use-case as universal. And I concede CR’s value for consumer goods like cars, appliances, housewares, clothing, and food, for which determining the needs of a “typical user” is a much easier task. As a college graduate with a BA in Computer Science who became a graphic designer, perhaps I’m not the typical user they’re aiming for.
Back when I subscribed, however, I came to realize that their advice for, say, home audio and computing gear was way more subjectively colored than their work with, say, home video equipment. Eventually, articles about receivers and PCs were only of interest to me in how they explained the technology being examined.
That’s exactly what people are upset about. There was never any need for ‘duct tape’ and they lost any and all readers with more than your lukewarm IQ over it.
He had a point, i.e. your attitude. You on the other hand, are only calling names.
Funny how all the Fandroids start their attacks with ‘I am a fan of Apple, but…’ or ‘I have like a million iThings but…’. I’m not buying your story.
Foiled by semantics and literal interpretations–you’ve outed my dastardly plan to disprove climate change and drag us back to the dark ages!
Anyhoo, my point was it was a rational and reproducible approach.
In the context of the goal and common sense, the samples are perfect.
I find myself more in agreement with you than not. In fact you are being (generously) reasonable in your assessment.
As a former subscriber and regular visitor to their early web content, I think they had a good opportunity to evolve with the culture but were anchored by an apparent debt to their own legacy.
Bingo.
You can choose to believe what you will.
And I was a ardent fan of Android. Evangelist, even. Of the 7 smartphones I’ve owned, 5 were Android-based and I cheerfully donated to developers and the XDA and RootzWiki communities.
But ultimately I found myself dissatisfied by a number of factors across the devices, the ecosystem as a whole, and (the final nail) Google, which has repeatedly demonstrated a seemingly willful ignorance of the human end users of its products.
Nice to meet you, Kettle. (Or Pot, I suppose…)
Is that the same CR that criticized the Miata for having limited headroom? I bought one anyway. Turns out that the headroom extended to the end of the Universe.