> dirty business if you are giving reviewers something better than the people who are reading the reviews It isn't clear if this is what's happening behind. I

> dirty business if you are giving reviewers something better than the people who are reading the reviews It isn't clear if this is what's happening behind. I think the Dell rep was being very frank about it, that Dell did not intend to supply an IPS monitor and reserve the right to be flexible regarding what panel to use. If IPS panel really matters, then one may want to choose a monitor that clearly says so in the spec. In fact, if you look at the link [3] in the root comment, some people clearly understood that it was possible to receive the cheaper, inferior panel, yet would like to participate in the gamble. [3] http://en.community.dell.com/f/3529/t/18286693.aspx http://en.community.dell.com/f/3529/t/18286693.aspx The challenge of engineering physical goods is that, unlike software, many things vary. That is why in electronics industry, manufacturers publish detailed datasheet that lists nearly all the parameter one will care about, including all the tolerances. It is quite uncommon for the customer to actually test each of those parameter to ensure they are within spec, but it is a contractual constraint placed on the supplier in case things go wrong. I think the same idea can be applied to your car example. Ideally, even if most customers don't read the spec sheet, the manufacturer should still provide it. Customer can have peace of mind by knowing that his/her experience will not be too far off from the review others published online. If what you care about is absent from the spec, think twice before buying the product.