But it generally is mostly impossible. Of course you can read about the products, you can read reviews, and then you can build some kind of belief around that. "From what I read, and assuming that the company doesn't bankrupt suddenly, and assuming that they won't deploy an update that erases all my data, I believe that this one is better". But that's a belief: you don't know anything about the hardware that is inside (other than a list of a few high-level components you think you understand, maybe) or about the software that is running inside.
(Seriously, it's pretty difficult. Read reviews? They can give some idea, but it's rare that they do any rigourous testing, and they can be corrupted. Have a brand or specific model that you like and has a good reputation? How do you know they haven't started to cash in on that by cutting quality but still charging the same prices?)
But building trust in brands like Project Farm or Consumer Reports suffers from the same bootstrap problem.
If people would like to be informed of the tradeoffs but do not have the information the end result is not optimal.
So for instance, with that framework, if you choose the cheaper item instead of the inconvenience of understanding the tradeoffs between the items, you obviously care less about quality than price and convenience.