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This guy really irritates me

J515OP

Super Moderator
Irritating indeed.

Here's the problem.

Microsoft is marketing the Surface Pro as an alternative to a traditional laptop. It may look like a regular tablet, but the Surface Pro has all the same guts and specs as many regular laptops crammed inside. The Surface Pro also has the full version of Windows 8, meaning it can run older Windows apps designed for Windows 7.

But it borders on a joke for Microsoft to only offer a maximum of 83 GB of free space on a device that's designed to replace your regular laptop.

Even worse, the 64 GB model costs $899 and the 128 GB model costs $999. But you'll have to pay another $120 if you want to buy the special keyboard cover and get the full Surface experience.

MS is marketing as an alternative to a traditional laptop but it has laptop parts inside a tablet case. That is a problem? It has a full version of Windows 8. That is a problem?

Free space is never advertised only the total capacity of the drive including laptops. Is that a joke considering everybody does it that way?

The price is even worse you say? Why because it is the same price or cheaper than similar laptops?

This is a laptop in a tablet body though remember? The keyboard isn't necessary let alone a special keyboard to get the full Surface experience. It is an innovative option and in fact you could argue that to get the full Surface experience instead of a laptop experience you would actually need to remove the keyboard and use it as a tablet.

Just for comparison I guess the MacBook Air 11" has the same problems or worse.

64GB for $999 or 128GB for $1099 (Of course that isn't really what you get, so is Apple lying?)

Core i5 processor with 4GB of RAM (What it has laptop guts and specs!)

Weight 2.38lbs (compared to 2lbs for Surface Pro)

Of course it has a non-removable keyboard meaning the keyboard is absolutely necessary for the full experience considering it doesn't have a touch screen.

Last but not least, it doesn't come with full Windows 8. Guess you need to buy that separately if you need to run your Windows legacy apps designed for Windows 7.


Business Insider recycled another very similar article somebody posted here into this one and only made a couple of changes to point out how The Verge supposedly broke some huge story that you don't get the full capacity of the flash storage and the release date. Is this even an article or just a big joke?
 

J515OP

Super Moderator
I have made a capacity reference chart here http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/...8-flash-memory-actual-capacity-estimates.html

To be fair about the the capacities we have:

64GB = ~59.6GB usable space. 59.6GB - 23GB reported free space out of the box = 36.6GB for OS and recovery.

128GB = ~119.2GB usable space. 119.2GB - 83GB reported free space out of the box = 36.2GB for OS and recovery.


That is ~4.5GB less than the stated 41GB used on the 64GB model and ~8.9GB less than implied OS use on the 128GB model. A hefty sum but not as much as it appears without taking usable space into consideration. Just subtracting free space from the total gives you two different OS sizes which is silly but it is said and implied that is what is happening. Taking usable space into consideration at least gives a consistent result.

This is good to know but no different than the situation has been since the marketing of drive space first began.
 
OP
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Afy

Member
Kovach is over opionated and does not really get technology. That is the unfortunate truth about the so called tech media these days. Most of them sensationalise non-story's and often completely miss the point.
 

Towering Shadow

New Member
Apples Plan..................Release the SAME iPad with 128Gb LMFAO, fail.

That might actually work out for Apple. Most of these articles will probably say "Apple puts out a new tablet with 128Gb which puts the Surface Pro to shame". Why? Mostly because these people who write these articles just look at specs and only the ones they want. They should look at expandability and usability. The Surface Pro is going to have a full running operating system which is touch screen and is extremely portable. I'm done with the whole packing my laptop with my luggage thing.

I believe this article completely misses the point. I think you'll eventually be able to load other full running operating systems (once they catch up) into your tablet. You'll need to know how much memory you have to work with and that's 64Gb and 128Gb. The Surface Pro is going to be opening doors into to the tablet world where most of the people who write these articles, will not be able to comprehend.
 
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ArnoldC

New Member
Don't be surprised when someone posts a Surface Pro running OSX, aka hackintosh.
Sent from my Windows Phone 8S by HTC using Board Express
 

R0bR

Member
BI is full of Apple lovers, more so than other sites I find. The issue I see with this is they are singling out the Surface Pro yet all ultrabooks running Windows 8 will have this "storage issue". I just got my new ultrabook from work, it's the Dell XPS 12, the base config has 128GB SSD but mine has 256GB. When I looked at the partition setup there was the OS partition, an 8GB recovery partition and another 8GB partition for Intel Rapid Start. Since it came with W8 Pro I blew it away and installed Enterprise, dumped Dells recovery partition then added back the Intel partition (because it boots even faster with it). Surface Pro is still the better option over the iPad, 64GB iPad owners will have to buy the new higher capacity model. Current ultrabook\tablet and soon to be Surface owners can just plug more storage to the USB port.
 

flight

New Member
One good thing to take away from all of this criticism regarding the storage space is that the Surface is a significant product in the minds of the press. As R0bR points out, many SSD-based Windows laptops have this issue, but there are no Engadget headlines, Reddit frontpage submissions, or 50-page forum threads about the Dell XPS 12 because no one cares. They care about the Surface and its good points and bad are deemed newsworthy. I think the reviews will be overwhelmingly positive and it will enter themminds of consumers as well.
 
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