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A 'Figure of merit' is a quantity used to characterize the performance of a device relative to other devices of the same type. It is often used as a marketing tool to convince consumers to choose a particular brand.

Contents

Examples

Deception

Examples

★ Clock rate of a CPU

★ Contrast ratio of an LCD

★ Frequency response of a speaker

★ Fill factor of a solar panel

★ Resolution of the CCD in a digital camera

★ Detection performance of a sonar system

Deception

A figure of merit is often not enough to determine performance when comparing products, yet consumers may solely depend on a figure of merit for selection. For example, when purchasing a laptop a consumer could choose based on the capacity of its hard drive. The rpm, cache, and seek times may not be notated, but significantly affect performance.