A gross game undoubtedly played by hardware companies is to offer a low end variant that is markedly less desirable than what is sent out for review. Apple has long done this with iPhone storage where even the so-called Pro model starts with a paltry 64 gigabytes of storage. Apple also did it with the 2016 13” MacBook Pro wherein the most affordable two port option was a vastly different machine than the four port alternative. Here’s what Stephen Hackett said about them in 2016:

While they may look similar, the traditional-Function-key notebook is much more Air than Pro under the hood. The Escape uses a 15W Core i5 CPU, 1866MHz LPDDR3 RAM and an Intel Iris 540 GPU, while the 13-inch model with Touch Bar uses a 28W Core i5, 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM and Intel Iris 550 graphics. This means the Touch Bar machine is not only faster, but can run at its top speed for longer.

It is and always will be gross. So when I came across this review hands-on of the HP Spectre x360 13, I couldn’t help but comment on Twitter that the model at the linked price didn’t include the headlining 4K OLED screen. The author responded that the $1100 non-4K OLED was a good model and that the $1500 model with the touted screen was still a good bargain. I don’t have any reason to argue the value of those prices, but it’s beside the point. Doing an otherwise solid write-up about a new laptop that focuses on a great screen, then highlighting a price that doesn’t include said great screen is disingenuous.

While I can only wish hardware companies didn’t even play this gross game to begin with, I expect those covering them to not play along.