Like most magazines, we like product exclusives. A shiny new laptop, in our hands before the rest of the press, and a review online early enough to sate the baying masses. We get plenty of hits on the website, a way to reach readers who otherwise may have looked elsewhere, and the pride that comes from a few days or weeks of being the only place to read about a product.

But what worked for the old days of magazines is just getting ridiculous in this online, instant age.

In the last month alone I’ve spent days with several brand new products from several different manufacturers, each interesting in its own way, and each so new that no reviews currently exist on the internet. But rather than basking in the glow of all that humming web traffic, I’m just about ready to put my foot through the next TFT that lands in our loading bay.

The conversation usually starts well. “Hi David, great news! We’ve got this great new monitor/laptop/cat that’s just arrived. Tell you what, you can have it early if you want?”

“Early? Like an exclusive?” I perk up. “Sure, send it in!”

Said device arrives, I get to work testing it down in the dungeon that is the PC Pro Labs. The details are emailed through to me – specs and pictures, obligatory overexcited press release – and I begin writing my review. But there’s just one thing missing: what’s the price going to be?

I get back to them: “Price? Is that not on there? Oh, we’ll find out and get back to you.”

Great. A few days later the review’s pretty much written and ready to run, I just need the price to write my final conclusion. I chase them up again: “Yep, working on it. With you ASAP.”

The product goes to our professional photographers, they spend their time (and our budget) making the ugliest product look startlingly beautiful (try that with some IT kit of your own and you’ll realise what a good job they do) with different styles for both mag and web. I send my provisional review to be edited, the sub-editors check the copy and the details, and we start to lay it out for the magazine and online. But the review copy can’t go yet as I still don’t have a price.

A review can’t be finished if i don’t know how much the damn thing’s going to cost.

But what’s this? Could this really be? It is! An email from the company. Finally, I can get it finished off and still get it online before those [censored] at www.[censored].co.uk get theirs done. Hurrah! But then I read it.

“This product will not be launched to retail until August. The SRP has not currently been decided.”

Oh.

Note to manufacturers: Exclusive reviews aren’t exclusive reviews if they’re just previews.