It should come as no surprise that computer manufacturers try to portray their products in the best light possible. That often means photoshopping images with screenshots of popular software. The marketing team ought to be sure, however, that the system can actually run that software. LG has offered a case in point.
In the marketing materials for the new and improved LG Gram 15, we see the laptop in all sorts of familiar positions. One shot shows the incredibly thin bezel, another shows a still of an action movie, and another of course shows it running popular Mac OS X applications Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. Wait, what?
The screenshots, which also show the Gram 15 plugged into an external monitor, don’t just show the Mac-only software running normally, there’s also a clearly visible menu bar in several of the shots. It’s too small to pinpoint the Apple logo, but its familiar position in the upper left corner is prominently displayed. Could LG have spoiled the surprise that Mac OS X would be coming to more systems?
Definitely not. Despite how it appears, Apple is still the only brand producing Mac OS X laptops, at least as far as we know. LG also avoided a potentially worse blunder, as the one shot that prominently features the Windows logo is definitely a screenshot of Photoshop sharing the screen with Windows Explorer.
It’s kind of an understandable mistake. Apple’s high-end video and audio editing suites are both impressive and well loved within their respective communities. Their UI is attractive and clean, a perfect fit for showing off a sleek, gold laptop. Still, you’d think somewhere between the photographer and the Web master, someone would have pointed out the obvious mistake.
Especially in the case of the LG Gram 15. We praised the machine for its impressively thin and light design, but performance was a low point. The i7’s low power point meant it fell behind a lot of our favorite 15-inch laptops in terms of raw power, making it not the best candidate for video editing.
If you’re wondering how the mistake happened — we don’t know. When asked for comment, and LG spokesperson simply replied, “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We’re working to make the necessary corrections as quickly as possible and have removed both images from our website in the meantime.” We’ll probably never know how it happened, but we’re willing to be that whoever is responsible is in hot water.
This doesn’t take home the prize for most egregious marketing materials, however. That honor is still held by the ComputerStick, a Compute Stick clone on Indiegogo that used a gameplay video with the IGN logo still in the corner to promote the low-power device. LG’s slip-up is laughably small compared to the ComputerStick’s rampant exaggerations.
Computer manufacturers beware: use the right images, or the Internet will sniff you out.
Update 4/15/2016 12:45PM: Updated with response from LG
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