The listing has two halves

Every product page mixes falsifiable statements with unfalsifiable ones, and they are not equally trustworthy. "IPX7" is a claim you could test and return the item over. "Whisper quiet" is not a claim at all, it is an adjective. The first kind is usually honest because there is a cost to lying. The second kind is free, so it is where the writing gets loose.

Claims worth trusting

Material grade, waterproof rating, charging method, dimensions, battery capacity, and the presence or absence of a specific feature. All of these are checkable, all of them appear in returns data if they are wrong, and manufacturers are generally careful with them. If a listing states the shore hardness of its silicone, that is a good sign: nobody states a number that precise unless they are confident about it.

Claims that mean nothing

Vibration mode counts, because most people use two or three. "Body-safe", which has no definition anyone enforces. "Medical grade", which is a material standard being borrowed to imply a safety certification it is not. "Whisper quiet", "luxury", "discreet". None of these are lies exactly. They are just not statements, and treating them as information is the mistake.

Reading reviews properly

Sort by lowest first, and read for pattern rather than for volume. One person saying it broke is an anecdote. Twenty people describing the same failure in the same words is a design problem, and the phrasing they use will usually tell you which part failed. Ignore the five-star reviews that arrived within a week of launch, and look for the ones written six months in, because that is where durability shows up.

What the photographs hide

Scale, mostly. Product photos are shot to make things look substantial, and the dimensions in the text are the only reliable guide to whether something will fit where you intend to put it. Photographs also hide seams and ports, which are exactly the parts that fail. If a listing has no clear shot of the charging end, that is usually not an accident.

Price and specification are not the same axis

A higher price does not buy better numbers in this category. Two toys at £30 and £70 will often list the same IPX rating, the same material and the same charging method. The difference sits in what is not listed: the grade of the motor mount, the thickness of the silicone, whether the seal was designed in or added afterwards as a rubber ring. That is why the useful question is not "what does it have" but "what did they spend the money on", and the answer is usually visible in the parts nobody photographs.

The one question worth asking

Before buying anything, find the answer to this: what happens when it breaks? A stated warranty, an actual returns policy, and a retailer that will honour either are worth more than any specification on the page, because the failure rate in this category is not zero and the difference between a nuisance and a loss is who pays for it.