From the look of the two monitors on the 'example' page, it looks like they're showing 27 or 30 inch monitors. If that's true, then the comparison of the 'low end' Radeon 3450 at a max of 1920x1200 to a 3470 or higher with a max resolution of 2560x1600 (the native resolution of a 30 inch monitor) will look something close to the example photos.

Not labeling the examples with the types of cards used, resolutions, sizes, etc is close to unconscionable for a business computer comparison / assist site.

The funny thing is that even if that's true, then the lowest end baseline integrated intel graphics chip would match the high end in display resolution, and therefore, sharpness on any monitor Dell sells.

Of course you are right. However almost all marketing involves implying things that are not true.

There is another problem here which may explain why companies do this; if they recommend you a service for HD movies and a 3 hour movie has a single hickup during playback, they're likely to get sued. Therefore anything which requires real-time performance (something the internet cannot guarentee), they'll just tell you to get the most expensive service. That way, when they get sued, they atleast can't be blamed for knowingly recommending an under-specced service, however reasonable a less expensive package might have been.

Doesn't mean it's "right", just that ligitious people and a law system interpretting law by the letter (thus ignoring common sense and reason) forces everybody to twist reality in order to cover their asses. They've made it risky to be honest.

From what I hear from disgruntled AT&T costumers, you only get a quarter of the advertised speed anyways. In that case, it makes sense to choose the 24Mbps "Max Turbo" plan for 5Mbps HD content.

It's not just misleading, it's actually lying. The pictures are accompanied by the phrase "Images shown are for demonstrative purposes only". But they're not demonstrative of anything like the difference between a high-end and low-end graphics card.

The fact that it's for business users does not in any way excuse Dell for flat-out lying to customers.

1920x1080 over an SVGA port with a low quality cable looks absolutely horrible,

The problem is almost always caused by the sync on the monitor being slightly out of phase with the clock on the graphics card. Back in ye olde days of TFT monitors, before DVI (I had one--I was an early adopter), the auto adjustment was not especially good and you had to tweak the phase slightly using the on-screen controls to get a pin-sharp image. With even really cheap monitors these days, the analog sync is exceptionally good compared to what it was. Almost all crappiness can be fixed by pressing the auto-adjust button.

I regularly use a TFT monitor driven with an analog cable at 1920x1200, and it's one of those modern, thin super cheap looking VGA cables. It looks great.

BTW, VGA is pretty forgiving on short cables. The frequencies aren't that high and any even moderately passable co-ax will do fine, and cheap modern coax is manufacturered to an astonishingly high spec.

And yes, I am a pixel nazi, like the visual equivalent of golden ears. I work in image processing, so I am very sensitive to things like ringing, JPEG artefacts, mismatched resolutions, phase errors, dithering, etc.

I mean, how else would you quickly and efficiently explain 3D acceleration to someone who has no idea what it is? Let's same I have a game and I want to run it at 30 frames per second. On a low-end card, I have to turn the details down and decrease the resolution to get the same speed - in other words, make it "blurrier." On the high-end card, I crank everything up and it looks nicer. Dell didn't want to get into the whole give and take of speed / detail / resolution, that's not who this guide is for. Blurrier is a good enough representation of those technicalities.

If there's anything wrong with this, it's that they used a desktop instead of a game screenshot. I supposed that potentially could cause someone to upgrade who had no legitimate need for a nicer graphics card. But with Aero and whatever desktop nonsense there is now, it's not that misleading.

And there you go. The first time, and probably the last time, that I've stood up for Dell.

Apart from that test below the image saying: "Image for illustrative purposes only". Legally that probably gets them off the hook on the fraud charges.

Also under our retarded british legal system you have probably now libelled them and they can sue you for millions of pounds in lost revenue.

The other problem is that many customers don't even know they are being had. Modern stuff especially electronics are so complicated that the average person just doesn't have the time to figure it all out and buy rationally. They usually become dependent on store recommendations or someone they know, if they know someone.

This is part of the reasons why companies make there offerings confusing and difficult to compare. It's been called a "confusopoly" to make sure people can't understand why a competitors products may be better. Notice how there are so many "customized" versions of smartphones? Nonsensical models numbers for a ton of computer parts, etc.

They've been doing that since long before the Monster crap. I worked there many years ago in high school. They'd purposely adjust the lower-priced TVs so that the color was off or the image was blurry, or sometimes they'd even futz with the vertical hold settings to introduce a slow roll (this was long before non-CRT tvs were available), and meanwhile they'd have the higher priced ones set perfectly to get people to pay more.

We've had that problem here with the local cableco. I've had customers come to me saying "They say if I want to watch netflix I need to get the high end package" while they neglect to tell them the standard home package (which is nearly $80 cheaper for the 3 piece bundle and nearly $120 cheaper by itself) is now thanks to their FINALLY switching to digital TV between 12Mbps and 20Mbps with it only slowing to the former number in the worst, most congested part of the day.

And of course with Black Friday tomorrow let us not forget Worst Buy, where I had a friend try to do a little temp work to get some extra scratch and had to quit in disgust because he said it was made clear his job was basically to lie about the performance of the lower end machines so grandma wouldn't feel safe unless she bought some $1000 gamer rig. I've noticed that quite often in the electronics depts. Kinda sad when the kids working the Wally World actually give me the warm fuzzy feeling simply because they don't know shit and will just give you an answer like "I don't know, it looks nice and you can play with the display model to see if you like it".

I'm just amazed at how much complete bullshit these bunches are allowed to get away with now. I had a customer last year that needed some LCDs NOW and asked me to accompany him to the local staples because he didn't know anything about features. i got so damned disgusted at the obvious bait and switch (basically every monitor they had on display below $200 was "not in stock") that I told him to just get in my truck and I'd personally drive him the 30 minutes to the state capital just to keep him from getting ripped off. I should probably thank staples for being douchebags though, he was so grateful i was willing to help him outfit his office after the fire and keep him from getting ripped off he bought 6 monitors instead of 5 and when I went to load them in his van he said "Leave the last one in the truck, its yours". Still its a shame that stores are allowed such douchebaggery nowadays. But I got not only the nice dell 20 inch for the shop but an extra $1000 in work setting up the office as well as his home, and another $3k in referrals, so thanks staples, thanks for being absolute douchenozzles.

What, are you stupid?

Yes, the salt in water (And everything else) is normally enough for people. To maintain their salt balance. No one said people had to run around drinking Gatorade to maintain a balance normally.

And when someone sweats too much losing salt and water, then drinks water and thus imbalances themselves (Which is, by far, the most common form of dehydration.), the solution is to not drink more fucking water, you idiot.

That is so stupid I cannot even comprehend what you are saying. It's like they're on fire and the prescription is to pour room-temperature gasoline on them, because, hey, it's room temperature, it should cool them down, right? I mean, it's not like losing salt and water and replacing just the water isn't what got them into the problem in the first place.

I don't care if they fucking drink Poweraide or whatever. Hell, they can eat a goddamn tablespoon of salt, I don't care.(1) Although I have to suggest the drinks designed to supply electrolytes are a bit more tasty than salt, or even salt water.

And I have to suggest that quite possibly you are suffering from mild dehydration, as you are presenting the symptom of 'confusion'.

1) Actually, people should not eat plain salt. It is likely to make them throw up, which makes dehydration worse. And you run the risk of going too far. If you don't have a drink designed to replace salts, drink water and eat pretzels(2) or something.

2) And now I will be called a pretzel shill.