Are reviewers misjudging cheaper smartphones due to their constant exposure to flagships?

Humans are fascinating creatures. We can not only adapt to live in all sorts of rough environmental conditions, but our minds can adjust to even the strongest stimuli, both positive and negative, over time. While all that is great for survivability, it can also make it harder for humans to judge objectively, because context highly distorts the way we perceive things.

We've all seen the optical illusion where two checkerboard squares appear to be of different shades because of the setting – when in fact they're the exact same color. Sadly, in real life, the context that is misleading us is ...