As most of you know, I’m no fan of Consumer Reports or the way it tests tech gear and other products. Sure, the magazine presents itself as superior to other publications because tested products are purchased at retail, usually anonymously, rather than provided free by manufacturers. But that doesn’t mean the test methodology or the results shouldn’t be questioned.

After giving the iPhone X a pretty favorable preliminary review, Consumer Reports found reasons to downgrade the product in its final report. Indeed, one of those factors appears to reverse a conclusion from the original test, but it’s fair to say that CR worked really hard to find faults in the iPhone X, just as they appear to do with other products under test.

In brief, the Samsung Galaxy S8 remains number one at a score of 81, largely because of its superior rating for battery life. When it comes to durability, however, it doesn’t fare so well. CR rates it as fair, largely because of a broken display after 50 drops in a device they refer to as a “tumbler,” which, of course, has nothing to do with the name given to the Batmobile in the super hero film, “Batman Begins.”

So CR recommends that, “a protective case is a must have.”

To be fair, dropping a smartphone two-and-a-half feet 50 to 100 times onto a hard surface is a pretty extreme maneuver, and a tech gadget has to be pretty tough to survive such abuse. So it’s not surprising to see the Samsung end up unwell as a result. It’s a factor, however, that should result in the product being downgraded.

While CR has other priorities, I would think that the Galaxy S8 should have lost at least a point or two as a result, even if the battery life is superior to other smartphones.

On the other hand, the iPhone 8’s = fared a lot better in durability testing, even though it was downgraded for shorter batter life. Says CR: “After 50 drops in the tumbler, our experts rated it as excellent.” It survived another 50 tumbles, and ended up in “good working condition.”

The iPhone X evidently had shorter battery life than its cheaper cousins. Two of the three units CR bought for testing suffered screen damage after 50 drops. Another suffered serious damage to the rear glass after 100 tumbles. So CR also recommends that you buy a case for this model, but it is not at all clear if the units still worked even after suffering all that damage.

Now in its preliminary test of the iPhone X, it did survive several drop tests without suffering serious damage. It took 50-100 drops to break it.

To me, it appears that the Samsung didn’t do any better in the drop tests, but the iPhone X was downgraded more, I suppose, due to shorter battery life. It ended up in ninth place.

Now under normal use and service, I doubt that the iPhones or the Samsung smartphones would be especially vulnerable to serious damage. Well maybe if you use them for frisbees. But it does seem that CR is more focused on battery life than most other factor in its reviews. This may represent the priorities of some people, but the iPhone X also had the best camera, which ought to count for something.

CR is certainly entitled to its test priorities, although it would be nice if they actually provided more information on how test results are weighted towards a final rating. You can only get that my inference.

That said, I am not going to doubt that the iPhone X doesn’t fare as well during extreme durability testing as the other iPhones. It’s the first version of a brand new design, and perhaps Apple will take this into account in developing new versions.

Consider the past.

When the iPhone 4 was dinged by Consumer Reports and a number of customers for poor reception if you held it the “wrong way,” even though other smartphones suffered from similar problems, Apple took notice. Well, after Steve Jobs said to hold it differently in an offhand comment. But he also called a press briefing where he talked about the laws of physics and allowed some tech reporters to tour Apple’s antenna design facility. For a few months, they even gave out free bumper cases. Antennagate was soon forgotten.

With the iPhone 4s, Apple changed the antenna design to something roughly similar in concept to the diversity system used in motor vehicles, resulting in improved reception under a larger variety of conditions.

The iPhone 6 Plus was criticized for being a little too easy to bend if left in your back pocket. CR went to work to see if the product was defective, but it survived their test process. Either way, the results proved to be a viable attempt at hit bait. Since it took extreme bending to damage the unit severely, bendgate was soon forgotten.

But with the iPhone 6s Plus, Apple added bracing and used a stronger aluminum, thus resulting in greater resistance to bending. Even though the original design was judged to be durable, Apple clearly wanted something better, something stronger.

So don’t be surprised if there’s a stronger iPhone X come 2018.

You might have expected this. Apple’s habitual critics were tripping over themselves attempting to paint the iPhone X — even when it was referred to mistakenly as the iPhone 8 — as a huge failure in the making.

At first it was about the problems Apple allegedly encountered in designing the thing, and the critics used the Samsung Galaxy S8 as the model for those complaints. So Samsung put the fingerprint sensor at the rear because it evidently couldn’t embed the sensor beneath the edge-to-edge OLED display. Thus, Apple couldn’t do it either, and would follow the same tact, assuming there was a fingerprint sensor.

But there had to be, since Touch ID is a significant factor in Apple’s ecosystem used for unlocking the phone, Apple Pay and for apps and services that also require similar levels of security. How could Apple build an iPhone without a fingerprint sensor?

Unless, of course, it was facial recognition. Here Apple supposedly rushed this feature into production due to the alleged Touch ID dilemma, implying it would be deeply flawed. But how would that explain Apple’s purchase of an Israeli 3D-sensor company, PrimeSense, in 2013? That technology helped pave the way for Face ID. Did Apple know that there would be such a feature some day?

How can it be otherwise? It’s not that Apple threw a system of this sophistication together at the last minute due to a design flaw.

Now that the iPhone X has been available to customers for over a month, it’s clear that Face ID, while not perfect, doesn’t have any serious flaws. More and more apps are becoming compatible with the “notch,” and minor product glitches have reportedly been fixed with an iOS update.

Then there was all that fear mongering that Apple couldn’t sell as many as it wanted, because it would not be able to begin to catch up with serious production bottlenecks until 2018. For the critical holiday season, cross your fingers and hope you’ll get one in a month or two.

The reality has been something else. After initial delays of five to six weeks once the initial preorder allotment was sold out, delivery times have improved substantially. As of December 4th, when this column was written, Apple was quoting deliveries of online orders by December 12th in the U.S. You may be able to locate one at a dealer, but you have to call around.

According to published reports, forecasts from IHS Markit indicate a pretty high adoption rate based on the first three weeks of availability. The stories indicate that the iPhone X has already exceeded 2% of the installed base in eight countries. This is reportedly in keeping with the usual adoption levels of previous iPhone models.

But don’t forget that Apple is also selling the iPhone 8, the iPhone 8 Plus, and older models, including the iPhone 7, the iPhone 7 Plus, the iPhone 6s, the iPhone 6s Plus, and the iPhone SE.

For various reasons, including saving money, people will obviously choose different models.

Add it all together, and IHS Markit is predicting that Apple will ship 88.8 million iPhone X units this quarter, which will, of course, be a record. Average selling price (ASP) is expected to rise above $700 based on selling at least 31 million of them.

It would add up to potentially record revenues, and that doesn’t include Macs, iPads, the Apple Watch, AirPods and other products and services. That the HomePod won’t arrive until next year may upset people who imagine it’s in the same product category as an Amazon Echo, but it’s not that a smart speaker market, or whatever you wish to call it, has been saturated. I’ve read estimates of Echo sales of 15 million or less since it was released in 2014. If Apple sold that few of anything in three years, you’d never hear the end of it. But with the Echo, it’s a big deal, a goal Apple will have difficulty reaching.

In the meantime, here’s another estimate of note about the iPhone X, though it’s not confirmed. It may well be that the $1,149 model with 256GB storage has been outselling the controversial $999 entry-level model, with 64GB storage.

Compare that to the racket made by some that Apple dared to sell a thousand dollar iPhone, and how it clearly meant the company’s greed knew no bounds. All this came at the same time that Samsung was selling the Galaxy Note 8 for “only” $949. On deals with monthly payments, the price difference is insignificant, and I suspect most anyone who regards the Samsung’s price as affordable isn’t going to complain much about paying $50 more for a competing product.

Well, there is the fact that the Galaxy Note 8 is being widely discounted, sometimes heavily. Does that mean that demand isn’t so great? Comparing it with the iPhone X is perfectly legitimate, though. In fact, in camera comparisons, the Samsung acquits itself well.

In any case, if an iPhone X is on your holiday shopping list, you will probably not have much difficulty finding one. But it does seem that the best approach is to order yours as soon as possible if you must take delivery before December 25th. Apple appears to be exceeding expectations one more time.

Once upon a time, I had a fairly sophisticated stereo sound system, worth well over ten thousand dollars. It consisted of a set of classic flat panel ribbon speakers, the Carver Amazing Platinum, in piano black, and several components bearing the Carver and Sunfire labels. The preamplifier even had tubes in it, so call me retro.

Alas, I sold it all in 2006 when I needed to raise cash. But I had reached the point where I seldom listened to it anyway. I spent more time listening to stuff on my TV set; I had a Bose home theater sound system in those days. True, the audio quality didn’t come close to matching that Carver/Sunfire system, but there was the added benefit of convenience. The main system was placed in the living room, and the family and I didn’t spend a whole lot of time there.

Since the advent of digital audio, and the amazing and unpredictable success of the original Apple iPod, more and more people listen to music on tiny ear buds. Some will spend money on higher quality gear, perhaps a full-sized set of earphones. But for traveling about, convenience rates above audio quality.

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For several years, you’ve been reading about efforts by tech companies and the major auto makers to build fleets of cars that can literally drive themselves. Once the technology is perfected, you should be able to, in theory, enter the vehicle, state your destination to the presumed digital assistant, sit back and relax, and you’ll be taken to your destination, even with stops along the way, with comfort and safety.

Nothing to think about; well, except if you have any latent fears that such a system can ever work successfully.

In a published report, GM says it will be ready to put fleets of self-driving vehicles into a number of “dense urban environments” by 2019. Development is being spearheaded by Cruise Automation, a company GM acquired in 2016 to rev up development of autonomous vehicles.

Add to that the self-driving vehicles already being tested by such company’s as Alphabet, parent company of Google, Apple and even the largest ride hailing firm, Uber.

Indeed, I’ve already seen a few of those automated Uber vehicles, consisting of converted Volvo SUVs, on the roads in and around Tempe, Arizona.

Now according to GM, they hope to reduce the cost of running their self-driving vehicles to under $1 per mile by 2025, just eight years from now.

What’s GM’s end game? Well, they are planning on taking on Uber, Lyft, and other ride-hailing systems, with the promise that their self-driving vehicles will cost 40% less per mile than companies who use human drivers.

That’s just GM. It doesn’t take into account the fact that Uber and Lyft and other firms are planning on doing the same thing, only they haven’t quite been as specific about their game plans. But the goals are clear, and that is to put human drivers — and that includes taxi drivers — out of work.

Ultimately, there will also be fleets of self-driving trucks, meaning that you won’t need human drivers spending hours on end on the road, basically giving up real lives to sit in the cabs all day or night. Well, I suppose they might have some people helping to remove cargos, but you get the picture.

That’s then, this is now.

These days, several million people around the world, including your humble editor, are relying on Lyft and Uber to provide at least a part-time income to help pay the bills. Some use it for full-time work. Indeed, at a time when the economies of the world are in questionable shape, this is a productive way to generate some extra cash.

Right now, both Uber and Lyft claim (or pretend) to be trying to make life better for their drivers. Uber has been stung by corporate scandals, with its CEO, Travis Kalanick, being given his walking papers. It’s in the latter stages of implementing its “180 Days of Change” program, designed to improve life on the road.

So in-app support for tipping, something long offered by Lyft, was added several months ago. While drivers aren’t notified where a rider is going until they are picked up, they now notify you if the trip is expected to take more than 45 minutes. This and other new features are designed to potentially help drivers earn more cash.

Over the next few years, it may work out fine. But it’s clear that human drivers are going to be yesterday’s news some day. As with manufacturers who rely more on more on robots than people to assemble products, drivers are an endangered species.

At first, riders will have the option to choose humans over self-driving vehicles. But when they see much lower prices for the latter, only a few skeptics will choose the former.

It may not matter so much to me, as I fully expect to be too old to care when the time comes. But younger drivers have to realize they are engaged in a profession with a hard stop. As I said, that’s just as true with manufacturing. While we fret over the poor working conditions of all those factory workers in Asia who build iPhones and other tech gear, more and more of them are being replaced by machines. Some day, in the not-too-distant future, it may well be that these sprawling factories will be managed by a small number of people managing a huge system of assembly robots.

So hopes to bring back manufacturing to the United States, and thus give workers their jobs back, are probably not going to be fulfilled except in a limited number of cases.

Now other than the concerns about the fate of drivers for ride-hailing services, I do wonder if the predictions about huge fleets of self-driving vehicles might just be a tad optimistic. Tests so far have been in a limited number of cities with relatively predictable driving scenarios. To stretch that capability to cover entire countries may take a lot longer than the current three to five years.

What’s more, just what will it cost for you to buy one of those vehicles if you don’t want to just hail a ride? For its 2018 Cadillac CT6, you have to pay $5,000 extra for its Super Cruise feature, and that’s for a souped up lane and cruise control system that can only function on a small number of specially selected limited-access freeways. Even when the hardware and software are nailed down, questions of liability, the impact on auto insurance and other considerations, will have to be resolved.

So maybe Uber and Lyft drivers won’t be out of work quite as quickly as GM and other companies expect.