The good ones usually try to play fair with manufacturers, so if equipment they receive for review is substandard - sometimes a faulty sample, sometimes bad design that could benefit from their feedback - they won't perform publishing's equivalent of going-in dry, and instead refer back to the maker. That just seems sensible, rather than disingenuous.
Alas, my direct experience on more than one occasion was quite different. A reviewer making basic errors, etc, then reporting the results as being inherent drawbacks/flaws of the product WITHOUT any attempt whatsoever to check with the makers or designers first.
I've also read and documented cases where they publish an article making 'technical' claims actually based on their failings or incompetence.
As documented on some of my web pages.
So the problem has been that what may seem a "good one" to readers wasn't always as "good" as apparent. And, no, in none of the above cases was any full retraction and explanation ever published in the magazine.
In earlier days reviewers *did* talk to designers and makers to check what they'd 'found'. But by the start of the 80s some reviewers had started also taking on 'consultant' work - i.e. doing private pre-reviews - for makers. Sometimes that was useful, but it drifted towards being a 'bung'. Or could be seen as such even when not. Often this wasn't declared, and for all I know the mag editor wasn't told, either.
Frankly, magazine 'reviewing' in that period was often unreliable and the fact glossed over. Makers couldn't afford to expose this at the time because they needed reviews in the magazine. But it was a lottery biased by the opinions/competence of the reviewers. Affected perhaps by if you'd paid the reviewer as a consultant or not.
Makers had to keep quiet because making a fuss would alienate those involved and risk not even getting mentioned in the mags, or criticised for 'subjective' reasons no-one coud argue with.
Barry Fox made a fuss about the 'consultancy' aspect IIRC, but others wanted to dismiss him.
