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So tell us, how does this sound for a dream WM phone?

• 800x400 Tetra-VGA resolution
• 3.9 inch Projected Capacitance Touch technology with 95 SVI
• WCDMA / HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps + LTE
• Scaled integrated WM architecture
• WLAN: 802.11b/g + WiMax
• Dynamic distributed 4mb cache
• Optimized multimedia protocol (RiGB, Tif, Xled)
• Connectivity: Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz + CDMA 1x
• An integrated object-oriented protocol
• 624mhz Snapdragon main processor; 412mhz Xtel Preprocessor
• BlueTooth 2.1 (EDR, GAP, GOEP, SPP, HSP, HFP 1.5, PAN, BPP, AVRCP)
• 1GB Pseudostatic RAM (PSRAM)

...all for running the yet unannounced "WM6.5 MultiMedia Ultimate" set for a Q2 wide release.

If you are like most people who read this and other tech sites, your jaws should be on the floor upon reading those specs. You may now lift your cracked chins, my little Guinea Pigs. Not only is that phone made up, but so are some of those "specifications". Why the cruel joke? As it turns out, you fell in line just like a bunch of nerdy researchers predicted you would.

Read on to find out why spec hounds like, ahem, us have skewed perceptions of device reality.

The Science

Evidently, consumers are strongly swayed by quantitative specification listings, even when they don't know what they mean or worse, they are made up. (See "Specification Seeking: How Product Specifications Influence Consumer Preference" in Journal of Consumer Research -- here's a scribd link). In fact, the researchers had a few hypotheses which included:

(1) Specifications will sway consumers, even when they provide no predictive information and can see and use the product

(2) Specifications have a greater effect on choice than on liking. (So if you really like Item B, instead of Item A, meaningless specifications will have less effect than if you were merely asked to choose between Item A or B.)

They ran five experiments looking to manipulate specifications on various products, including cameras, towels, sesame oil, cellular phones and potato chips. The phone experiment varied on screen vividness and screen size between two phones with two conditions. They also threw in a made up specification related to vividness called "SVI" with values attributed to each phone.

Sure enough, the "SVI Index" swayed people's choice between two phones with different values. This despite the fact that there is no such thing as SVI measurement.

An analogous situation is with digital cameras and the so-called "Mega Pixel Wars" which is really a Mega Pixel Myth. So while it is well known that more than 6MPs increases image noise and decreases sensor sensitivity, we still have cameras jacking up the MPs. Why? Because you fall for it.

Lesson Learned?

We've discussed these "Specification Wars" here at WMExperts for awhile--it's basically when companies are out of ideas so they just amp up specs with no perspective on real world differences. Think here of the dubious "benefit" of having "8x digital zoom" over "2x digital zoom", especially when the camera sensor and quality is just poor overall. Or simply adding more memory and gimmicks to a phone to differentiate it from the heard.

The article goes into methods that marketers of these fine products might consider using to sucker us. For you, the consumer, it offers this advice:

In making purchase decisions, consumers should at least do two things. First, they should seek experience, not just numbers. Seconds, they should avoid direct comparison and stimulate SE.

"SE" stands for "single-evaluation" and the essence is that head-to-head comparisons don't usually give you a clear idea of what your final experience of a device will be. Sure, in a Joint-Evaluation you'll favor the touch-screen spec of the HTC Tilt over the Motorola Q9h, but in a Single-Evaluation experience of the device you may find you'll get more done on the Q9h.

Basically, just be aware of this effect next time you're shopping or you see some Tech Blog drop a laundry list of "dream" specs on a new WM phone. Specifically, remember that higher specs may have little to no correlation to your overall happiness and satisfaction with the phone. Better to seek out single-evaluation reviews (or personal experience!) of each device separately and see which fits your needs better.

Who are we kidding? We want to know why the SVI Index on the Treo Pro is so much poorer than on the Touch Pro. Anything with an SVI of less than 78.3 is flat-out unacceptable! Ahem.

Thanks Ebag333 for the reference!

Tonight at 8pm Eastern, get yourself away from your families and point your browser at http://www.imore.com/live. As we did two weeks ago, we're recording another Smartphone Round Robin Roundtable podcast. This time, though, we'll be LIVE. We'll be rounding out our smartphone discussion, focusing on the T-Mobile G1 and the Fuze, then talking about the Round Robin overall.

Best part, though, is we'll have a chat going where you can chime in, talk to each other, and ask us questions -- which we'll answer LIVE towards the end of the show. We've let UStream know that we'll be hitting their service hard, so head on over and take a listen!

Again, that's 8pm Eastern tonight at http://www.imore.com/live.

In case you missed it earlier this week, HTC has given us a Fuze to give away to one of our gentle readers -- that's you. Seriously, we have the box right here at HQ and, well, it's the first time in years we haven't torn open a smartphone package like hungry dogs looking for steak. Head on over to the contest post and comment before 8am Eastern on Friday morning -- any comment that offers some sort of tip, trick, or advice about how you'd use the Fuze will do.

If you don't luck out here, though, fret not. Over at http://howifuze.com, HTC is giving away 120 of the suckers, along with a grand prize of twenty five grand. Yeah, really. Heck, even if you don't luck out there either, you still can use it as a nice demo to send to people who don't understand how to use TouchFlo 3D (Hi Rene!).

Update: Since we're already all Meta-WME here on this post, one more thing. CrackBerry Kevin is starting the penultimate round of the Smartphone Round Robin a little late and could use some help with the Fuze. Go on and help him out at this thread and, yes, it's yet another chance for you to win a Fuze. That plus a Redfly C8N. Show Kevin that Windows Mobile don't need no stinkin' virtual BlackBerry software slapped on!

You're probably better off just looking at the pictures, but if you didn't believe that the BlackBerry Application Suite, aka an entire BlackBerry OS running on top of Windows Mobile, was real, above is your blurry video proof [via CrackBerry.com].

Three thoughts:

1. Ignoring the slowness, it looks to us like this is a better touchscreen implementation of the BlackBerry OS than the Storm. Click-Screen may have been a clever idea, but this won't cripple your thumbs.
2. Not ignoring the slowness: what gives? Is this software designed to make users throw up their hands and say “bah! Give me a real BlackBerry!” or what? Yes, we know it's probably Alpha or Beta at best, but really, do you think that the entire BBOS on top of WinMo is going to be snappy?
3. BGR has the rundown on what works and what doesn't. What works: PIN and most OS functions. What doesn't: GPS, calling, WiFi (really?).

The lack of WiFi support is a puzzler, because WinMo has fantastic networking APIs and any application, including this one, ought to be able to get on it without a problem. It's possible that RIM is trying to code this 'close to the metal' instead of using standard WM APIs. If that's the case, cut it out RIM. Microsoft went to great lengths to help set up WM so you could program for multiple form factors at once using their standard APIs. Wasn't the whole point of this endeavor to allow people to use a BlackBerry on different form factors?