[jbk]

> Any other manufacturer do that?

We heard about HP and Dell doing that, and ONLY in the version they shipped to India or South-East Asia (Do they ship worse components there?)

> I wish I was skilled enough to contribute to the project

There is a very high chance that you are skilled enough, to be honest.

[eru]

Even if you don't know much, there's always grunt work to be done to get to know a project.

[xerophtye]

> (Do they ship worse components there?)

There is actually a chance that they might be, considering not all models are available in all regions, thus there are models that are marked for South-East Asia. So as a manufacturer, it's relatively easy for them to be biased.

That said, vendors in South-East Asia have a history of being scammers and taking out original parts and replacing them with cheaper hardware, so that could be a cause too, and HP might be innocent.