[lucaspiller]

The model numbers manufacturers have definitely don't help. A friend recently bought an Acer Aspire E1, of which there are about a million different combinations. The range she got has model numbers like E1-472P-XXXX, where the last four digits mean "whatever configuration of components we plucked out of a hat". Her's is Core i5 4200U, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD - which I can't find anywhere online :D

As another commenter said Apple has it right in that it's easy to say "this is the 2013 model". I bought a TV yesterday, and although they seem to have confusing model numbers too, at least the shop displayed them saying which was the latest models and it was easy to see the difference between them (apparently "dual core CPU" is a feature of TVs now).

EDIT: Typos.