RANT: Reviewer hardware gripes

Tech Talk Hardware
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Has anyone noticed that hardware reviewers of laptops are usually reviewing the high-end model of something. Engadget, for example, just reviewed an HP Omnibook, with the model they had costing over $4000.

The review is basically “yeah, HP has gone all out on this great device, but its overkill for most people” - then why are you even reviewing it? Why not review the model that’s most easily available to people - the base model - because that’s going to be the typical experience.

The same thing happened with the MacBook Neo. All the reviews were for the one with TouchId - “I absolutely have to have TouchId - blah-blah,blah” and few, if any, were for the baseline model. What if you don’t have TouchId? Is the experience crap? I don’t know - because I didn’t see hardly any reviews that gave me that perspective.

I saw this pattern with M1 and M2 Mac Mini reviews, where the hard drive performance of the base model wasn’t as good as the rest of the units, but no one discovered that initially because everyone was reviewing higher-end models.

I would love to see a review methodology that assumes a typical buyer has the median US (or whatever country) household income and whether that version would even be in their price range. Better yet - always review the lowest-end version of something. Let people know what the baseline experience is like. It’s a given that the higher-end units will typically be better - even my dead grandmother with glaucoma (rest her soul) can see that.

This ends my rant. Enjoy your day.

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Simple, those were the units provided to the reviewers by the vendors.

You need to find a reviewer that purchases their own hardware. Leo always said he did that when he was reviewing hardware, so that his reviews would not be biased.

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Yeah, but I couldn’t a reviewer ask for the low-end unit?

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The guys over at PC Perspective (former TWiTtler Sebastian Peak) are pretty frank about how review units work. They’ve stated in the past that you basically get whatever you get, especially today where the margins on commodity hardware have become thinner than a deli slicer.

I prefer outlets that acquire review hardware on their own dime. RTings.com is a good example, plus their testing methodology is extremely regimented.

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