Caught red-handed: Chuwi fakes laptop product images to look thinner and sexier than they really are

When reviewing any laptop, we always compare our in-house measurements against the manufacturer-provided numbers as a way to double-check our results. Though we don't expect the numbers to match perfectly, we do occasionally find mistakes on the manufacturer side. This time, however, the "mistake" is particularly egregious.

The AeroBook is a 13.3-inch Ultrabook from the Chinese manufacturer Chuwi that's currently available on Amazon and a number of other online retailers. Unfortunately, a quick look at its official product page contains not-so-honest images of the laptop in question. These images are shown below in their unedited state. The dead giveaway that something doesn't seem right is how narrow the USB Type-A ports are shown to be; in reality, they are taller than what Chuwi are claiming.

With our own Chuwi Aerobook in-house, we decided to recreate these images the best we could and we think the results speak for themselves. Not only is the actual AeroBook thicker, but it isn't nearly as sleek along the front and rear when compared to the product images from Chuwi. Furthermore, the bezel along the bottom of the display is far thicker in reality but conveniently reduced in size for the Chuwi AeroBook home page.

Chuwi advertises a thickness of 1.52 cm which we can at least confirm to be true when measuring the rear of the system ourselves. Nonetheless, we recommend users to be extra careful when making purchasing decisions based on product images or manufacturer renders.

Similarly, some Chinese smartphone manufacturers have been exaggerating the screen-to-body ratios of their smartphones to also make them look "sexier" than they really are.