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Software Uses Almost 1/2 the Storage On 32GB Surface Tablet
First time accepted submitter jigamo writes "Microsoft's newly released Surface tablets are available in 32 and 64 GB capacities. The company has disclosed how much of that space is available to the user. After taking into account Windows RT, Microsoft Office, built-in apps, and Windows recovery tools, nearly 13 GB of the available space is eliminated from user accessible storage. Microsoft's recommendations for adding additional capacity are to use cloud storage, a memory card, or a USB storage device."
A Tablet full of Microsoft, whats not to love?
13GB is not bad. I made the mistake of getting a 40gb SSD for my Windows 7 partition. I recently upgraded it to a 120GB one, much better.
At least they give you that option.
USB thumb drives I personally find handy, I tend to keep a 64 gig thumbdrive filled with movies, swap it between my android tablet, media center pc, laptop, or what have you, rather than having to replicate the file out endless times.
Cloud storage is no good in Canada, where uncapped internet doesn't really exist, and mobile plans are absolute garbage.
It seems ridiculous to me that 13GB is taken by the OS and built-in software.
How does that compare to iOS? And to be fair, how does that compare to iOS+Pages+Keynote+Numbers?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
"Nearly 13"/32 = nearly 40%.
"Nearly 13"/64= nearly 20%.
Almost half. Sure, no exaggeration detected at all. And then you can add a memory card if over 19GB isn't enough for everybody.
Ok, so you're accounting for what is likely to be the largest single software install (as in storage) available for the unit outside of the OS. What is it without the Office package?
Why does a tablet need a file system browser, a registry editor, DirectX diagnostic tools, notepad, or a command prompt?
All those really exist in Windows RT on the Surface. They don't need to be there. It's supposed to be a freakin tablet. They could have made a lot more space available by removing a lot of these types of things.
Yes, really. There's no nice way to say it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I thought all that was stored in the tiddly-winks chips.
(16GB for Windows, Office and media apps.... my Desktop uses FAAAAAAR more. Get it through your head people - Surface is a touch screen ultrabook, not a tablet.)
And that there is part of the problem. "acceptance". Nope, no nice way to put it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Reading this post has used the rest of the *out of memory error*
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IJ9DJF1_FrE
If you can spend $700 on a tablet computer, you can spend $50 on a 64 GB thumb drive.
sudo make me a sandwich
does anyone really care ?
Help! I am a self-aware entity trapped in an abstract function!
Here is my recommendation: "Buy something else."
I for one, bought a Google Nexus 7, and quite like it.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
A fully loaded linux install takes up no more than 4 GB.
13GB means bloat.
Just use the CLOUD ! The cloud fixes everything!!!
That should have been THIS FIRST thing you guys thought of, before even writing the article!
I bet you guys feel really embarrassed now, huh?
Any estimate how much of that 13Gb does anything useful?
Or how much is viral code?
Remember, this is the company that would have you believe an office suite requires circa 140Gb of storage...
That's quite high for Android tablets. Most top out at 8-16GB, and they usually leave little room for user data also. So in comparison, they are really quite above most tablets available..
Indeed. I remember when a 40gb disk was huge.
To... much... bloat...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
What did you expect? Of course to be fair, if you install a *full* version of the average desktop linux ( or bsd ) distribution you get tons of stuff by default too. Most of it you dont want.
But still, for a tablet product they should have gone out of their way not to just toss crap onto it. Space is not cheap, like it is on a desktop.
Idiots.
Calling other people idiots doesn't make them so. As for your comparison with a Linux Desktop with a healthy selection of Apps I am running at 7GB after many months. I suspect a fresh install would require much less. Ubuntu for example https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements suggests 5GB.
It accepts a MicroSD, so who cares? Contrary to the market-segmentation-via-soldered-in-SSD strategy of certain other companies, the fact is, the stuff is very cheap - $1 per gigabyte.
Would you drive your car around with the hood welded shut and no lug wrench?
If you insist on keeping important configuration in a ludicrously unreadable binary registry, instead of simple and efficient text files, you aren't going to be able to maintain the box with a general purpose tool like a word processor or text editor. Windows systems pretty much require a registry editor.
Well, it's actually kind of cool that the user can pop in a memory card. I guess I have gotten a little to used to iProducts that don't allow such niceties.
So there is a 16GB Surface! :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'd rather take a device with 13gb free space and a memory card slot, rather than one with 28gb free and no way to expand.
Other misc recommendations
REMEMBER, TABLETS ARE LOW MAINTENANCE! (compared to PC's)
With Love,
Microsoft
PS: You really did not think things would change THAT much!
This entire submission is total bullshit. It's intended to stoke the flames of the Microsoft haters and drive clicks here. So it takes up 13 GB? How does that compare to iPad, and the newest factory Android tablets? Is it really bloated, or is the additional stuff actually useful even if in limited circumstances. But no, instead all we get is a worthless and exaggerated metric when taken by itself. Any number taken out of context can be made to look bad.
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/31/microsoft-surface-can-not-compete-against-real-tablet/
Child!
I remember my first floppy disk drive with 68K per 5.25" disk.
That was my third computer.
Also, get off my lawn.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
is like 4GB alone. They need to get rid of the bloat if they are serious about mobile/tablet.
40GB? Heck, I remember when 40MB was huge. I remember when 5MB was amazing.
Now get off my lawn.
So this was always my assumption of putting a full OS on a tablet. It simply would not have enough power or memory to really make it work, even using something like the simplified interface that was so-recently-called-Metro. Even the 64 GB iPad is getting insufficient. I am not going to buy another until there is 128GB.
So, big surprise, building a table to meet a price point is not going to result in a high end experience, no more than buying the cheapest laptop allows one to create a feature film. In this case, however, we may find that bloated software may not even allow one to write a memo in MS Word. I suspect we will find the low end solution is still going to be Android and Google Drive.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Get a load of little lord Fauntleroy here, with his floppy disk !
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Just do what this guy did and use two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-pMZd1fupw
Excuse me, are we talking the freakin' OFFICE SUITE of programs when you say Microsoft Office? Are you INSANE? Why the fuck should this figure in any calculation at all? As much as I loathe the direction Microsoft is taking this sounds more like a shill padding his calculations than actual valid criticism of the device. A full office suite can easily eat up more than half of the space alleged to be unavailable to the user. Add to this that 40.6% != 50% and you got the typical sensational bullshit of shill propaganda. Pulling numbers out of my ass and making a guestimate removing the Office Suite will at least reduce this to more than 25GB leftover, with space to expand using both internet storage and external devices. If you really need space, you can just buy a 32GB memory card or better at a rather cheap price and leave it in the slot. If you really, really need space you can go ahead and buy the 64GB + a 32GB memory card with probably ~90GB leftover after the OS footprint.
If you really need more than that locally either stop buying tablets and buy a proper laptop or accept the "inconvenience" of card-swapping. Jeez.
This is coming from a Linux user. /endrant
~$ df Ooo look 7312160k - full office suite - browser *2 - graphics package *2 - video/music player *2 - music creation package * 7 - wine + PCB package *2 - cd/dvd package - etc.
According to the linked page, the storage capacities are advertised in decimal. How is that? Don't they use solid state storage, like every other tablet out there? Isn't that whole binary vs decimal discrepancy a characteristics of spinning storage? If not, how do the solid state storage manufacturers manage to only fit 32,000,000,000 bytes (reported as 29.8GB) where you would expect to see 34,359,738,368 bytes (reported as 32GB)? Do they somehow disallow access to the difference to keep the marketers happy?
It is great that the surface has a micro-sd card, but it suffers the same issues that the android platform has, which is that you can NOT install apps on the micro-sd card. For comparison, both IOS 6 and Jelly Bean are around 2gb in size.
Nearly 13GB should be enough for everyone.
A full version of Ubuntu including OpenOffice tips the scales around 2gig. You were saying?
16.7GB Free of 24.9GB on a 32GB Model; 2GB Ram with Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad Core Arm
It takes a micro SD card, so its easily upgraded and USB memory sticks simply plug in and work. Other USB devices I've tried like wired mouse, laser bar code scanner also just work without any error messages or power complaints.
I have bought nearly every iPad on the day it came out, so some may call me an Apple Fan boy...
But being objective and fair minded, we have to look past the specs, hype, press and people passing judgement without actually using the product.
The detachable keyboard has a trackpad and operates with a mouse metaphor. You can also use it in tablet mode with the touch screen. The free remote desktop program works really well so I can remotely operate my regular desktops and servers. This is a big deal because it add another dimension to what I can use my tablet. Everybody kept saying that the keyboard was what made the Surface different and they are wrong. I have a good Kensington keyboard for my iPad - I never use it. Its the option of retaining the mouse metaphor that differentiates this product and its importance is hard to overstate.
I had a little weirdness getting my account and password to work to access the Microsoft store, but these are growing pains that will quickly go away. Brace yourselves for much criticism, but in the end its noise.
I have to say that I really like this device and can see really using it all the time. This is by far the best version 1 product I have ever seen out of Microsoft. I know some may say that this is Windows 8, but its also Surface Tablet version 1. This device will ease desktop and laptop users' transition to a more mobile paradigm. If Microsoft adds a low cost virtualization into Azure option for transferring old desktops into the cloud they will have a big winner.
5GB is a recovery partition.
3GB is lost* due to 32GB drive = ~32,000,000,000 bytes. System reports that as 29GiB.
* The advertised local disk size is shown using the decimal system, while Windows displays the disk size using the binary system. As a result, 1 GB (in decimal) appears as about 0.93 GB (in binary). The storage capacity is the same, it's just shown differently depending on the how you measure a GB (decimal or binary).
I bought a DEC Microvax for work many years ago and after many meetings with the DEC people about the specs of the thing, it was delivered with a 30Meg hard drive. After a few days the tech came to update the OS and found the disk was full as delivered so the update could not be done and we could not run any programs. Their solution was for us to delete all the help files and other "unnecessary" stuff. Sigh. We upgraded to a whopping 150Meg.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
IoSs 28/32G
Android 28/32G
Surface 15/32G
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/31/microsoft-surface-can-not-compete-against-real-tablet/
Just as well Windows RT only uses 8GB then. There's a 5GB recovery partition.
And how much is it to add an additional 32gb or 64gb to your iPad if you hit your storage limit?
You swap some data out to external storage, just as Microsoft recommends.
$20 or $49 like the Surface or more?
You can't put apps onto external media on the Surface either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nexus 7 tablet - no SD card. Nexus 4 phone - no SD card.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd rather take a device with 13gb free space and a memory card slot, rather than one with 28gb free and no way to expand.
It's not like you can use that card to install applications on, so what does it really matter?
You can use network storage from an iPad just as easily.
It's better to have a larger amount of flash that performs really well than to stick some of the things you use on a poorly performing cheap SD card.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It does if *I* say so.
And you can be added to the idiot group if you like.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This may not sound convincing to the nerds who know their way around a computer, but the Surface is a Windows machine, and an iPad is an iPad. The concept of storage device, drive letter, file location is not really required on an iPad. I suppose you can say you need to know whether it is on the iPad or on the Cloud, but that's different from which drive to access to find your movie file, or which memory stick to use (did you label it?). Sure, I'd prefer a device with cheap expandability, but the iPad has sacrificed in a lot of areas to be as simple as possible, and for a vast many people that is a good thing.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
You were saying?
I guess you cant read. What i said was clear, moron.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
On an iPad using the camera connection kit, I can access an SD card and load images and movies from it.
Or of course I could also load things from network storage.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This was from my 4th computer:
http://fatphil.org/images/im_floppier.jpg
Next!
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
It is what it is...what's the big deal?
All those NAND Flash memory devices I have seen so far had their capacity shown in KiB, MiB, GiB or equivalent units with base 1024. I think that's more natural because that's how you organize them, and because count of logic elements will not affect to the cost directly(the size of a die will, though). Does the Surface actually have Flash with base 1000? That'd be interesting.
40GB??? My first PC had a 20MB hard drive. My 2nd had a whopping 40 MB...
You can only use that space on the SD card for data. You cannot use it to store apps.
Say the Surface's memory is evenly divided into 16 GB for the operating system and included applications and 16 GB for third-party applications, with all music and movies on a microSD card. What kind of application collection takes up 16 GB, other than a bunch of hardcore games? I thought hardcore games weren't ported to Windows RT, and most apps and casual games were far smaller than that.
Until we hit SP1. And, don't forget the patches for the vulnerability in the built in browser that 90% of the tablet functions will require the use of.
I'm sure that Microsoft will do a much better job of policing their App Store than those other guys. So, no worries there right?
And WTF do I need Office on a tablet for? That's why my notebook and PC are for, and in a pinch my netbook.
It's for carrying around with you instead of a netbook. And it's for using once your netbook breaks. With no mention of Microsoft making available a special cheap OEM version of Windows 8 for netbooks the way it did for Windows XP (ULCPC licensing) and Windows 7 (Starter Edition), I've read that netbooks won't be sold in stores anymore. Even the maker of the Eee PC, which launched the netbook category, has discontinued its line of netbooks.
The Surface comes partitioned with a 3.5GB recovery partition, which can fully reset the device including drivers, OS updates, full volume encryption + losing the recovery key, and people running amok with Admin permissions (assuming they don't mess with the recovery volume itself). The iPad, last I checked, still required the use of a real PC if something goes drastically wrong and it needs resetting. It can handle typical reset scenarios just fine, but can't be used to downgrade (or so I'm told; that may be wrong). I don't know if the iPad even supports installable drivers, either (although on the Surface RT, they must be signed by MS so hopefully not *too* much harm would occur from them).
The Surface also comes with the standard suite of Windows admin tools, including the Management Console and the Disk Management snap-in for it. You can modify the partitions if you want to. You could even back up the recovery volume to a USB storage device or NAS (the device supports booting from USB, not sure about NAS) and then remove the recovery partition and extend the main volume to fill its space. You can also mount a removable storage device, such as a microSD card or USB Mass Storage volume, into the root filesystem. Can an iPad do anything like that?
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I get it! You made an irrelevant comment that could be easily misunderstood to be relevant, then you get to make fun of people for misunderstanding what you said! I have not seen such artful trolling for many months. Well done, sir!
(Since this discussion is about how ridiculous the size of the Windows tablet installation is, stating that Linux desktops include unwanted apps without making any sort of size comparison is completely irrelevant to the discussion.)
Well since music and movies can all be obtained through the cloud
The cloud is useless if it can't be reached because A. you have the Wi-Fi-only version and are away from home and open hotspots, B. you have no cellular data subscription, or C. you've already burned through your data plan this month.
Or of course just keep some media on external network devices
Which portable external network devices are you talking about?
or SD cards
I guess the Surface can, but I wasn't aware the iPad could play movies and the like from an SD card.
There are these things that plug in to USB ports that let you stick in other memory cards.
Just because you can physically plug devices into the machine doesn't mean that the operating system will recognize the devices. I seem to remember several tablets not having drivers for USB mass storage.
8GiB for RT+Office+apps
5GiB for recovery
That's 13GiB gone. From 29GiB, that's almost half.
'After taking into account Windows RT, Microsoft Office, built-in apps, and Windows recovery tools, nearly 13 GB of the available space is eliminated from user accessible storage.'
I don't really get what your complaint is here. The summary seems pretty accurate, especially for slashdot.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I wonder to what extent the limitation of FAT support to read-only use was Microsoft's fault, as Microsoft owns the patent on how file names are stored in the FAT file system used on most SD cards. The "VFAT" patent probably won't expire for at least another three more years.
I don't think I have read an article full of so much lies and bullshit since Mitt Romney's last speech. Sorry, but what the fuck has that article writer been drinking? Bleach? The pathetic attempt at comparison is absurd, and just full of outright lies. Sad. "Surface without any apps. - 15G free." Are you joking? No apps? Please stop lying.
"The surface is ... much slower at everything". Yeah, great comparison. Please forgive me for ignoring morons with unsubstantiated claims. Someone poisoned this dudes Cool Aid with some serious hallucinogenics.
So what's wrong with software using almost half the storage? What else would it be used for?
Oh wait, was it a really badly written headline meaning the OS uses half the storage?
i made a minimal jellybean build for droid, and the system part is 140megs
with tablet resolution imgs and all the bells and whistles it would probably take 512megs
largest lib is libwebcore at 13megs, dsp codecs take up 13, apps average around 2mb each.
Seriously 13gb for a tablet class OS and a few progs is just really inefficient.
I guess they don't ignore me like they say they do. Either that or the revalation was entirely promted by Microsoft's high corporate ethics standards. That said, it is still wrong, the one I tested had 15.0GB free, not 16. I guess MS didn't want to admit they have LESS than half of their storage free.
And I didn't even mention the impending service packs, patches, and related bloat. WART is going to be a disaster...... No, it is out, WART _IS_ a disaster.
-Charlie
"After taking into account Windows RT, Microsoft Office, built-in apps, and Windows recovery tools, nearly 13 GB of the available space is eliminated from user accessible storage"
... Ubuntu usb-creator
I have a 4GB usb device with the full system taking up 712kb storage
AccountKiller
This is 'Windows' we are talking about
No, it's Windows RT. Microsoft reserves the right to leave out drivers for strategic reasons.
Plus for most of the USB devices (like thumb driver, external HDD, Digi Camera, keyboard, mouse, etc.) Windows doesn't need particular driver, there are class drivers
Some operating systems leave out even class drivers for particular classes. For example, a thumb drive, an SD card reader, an external hard drive, and a digital camera are examples of devices that conform to the USB mass storage device class. But to mount a USB mass storage device on a Nexus 7 tablet running Android OS, you need to root it and install StickMount, and I seem to remember reading that a rooted tablet can't run certain applications such as Netflix.
I guess nobody here has ever worked with Windows CE and all of the variants? Windows-RT will be bloated for quite awhile and it will eventually die, like CE or be reborn as something else like Windows Mobile or WP7/8 or something else. The nice thing about Android or iOS for that matter is a clean sheet approach and you can get away from all those old nasty Windows XP or Windows 95 things that you still have to support because people expect you to. Right now I'm laughing at folks who spurn Windows 8 in general and give the "I'll wait to SP1" crap. If you're technical, jump on in, the water's fine and like Windows-RT it works. My biggest annoyance has been placing the tiles where I say to place them and stop moving them you annoying.. anyway..
Yeah, it's a bit bloated but that's what MSFT needs too, is people pointing to it like Nelson and saying "Ha Ha!" That way, like the fat kid in school he'll either get straight, become obsessed with getting back at those who laughed, eventually climbing a tower with a high power rifle and shooting indiscriminately, or he'll go back and have another twinkie and start writing code and working on things like math and science and stuff. In MSFT's case I can't see Ballmer climbing a tower so they'll just eat another twinkie and push for the next generation of NAND storage just in Ballmer's case skip the math and science stuff.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Microsoft is a disaster. I really prefer an Android tablet.
So I have been trying to figure out what on earth is taking up the 13GB, and here is what I have so far:
Recovery and EFI partitions - 4.0 GB There are two recovery and one system partitions. The system partition appears to be there for EFI. Pagefile.sys and Swapfile.sys - 2.6 GB Virtual Memory! Program Files - 1.0 GB This is mostly Office, with a few other things thrown in: IE, Windows Contacts, Photo Viewer, etc. Office occupies about 630MB Windows/System32 - 1.75 GB This is the core of the OS Windows/Fonts - 400 MB Some really large font-files here, but Windows does ship to a huge international audience with complex script support. Windows/Speech - 400 MB Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech. Windows/IME - 200 MB This is the support for inputting complex scripts among other things. Dominated by Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Windows/Microsoft.NET - 200 MB .NET frameworkI also have about 800 MB in a SoftwareDistribution folder, but that may be tainted by Windows Update (there were patches available on the first day, literally, weighing in at 600+ MB - for the Office update to RTM among others). Another curiosity is that there is a 10 MB SysWOW64 folder for some reason. Aside, I have not checked how big the system registry hives are.
My user folder is about 2.0 GB, most of which is in Windows Store apps. Still trying to find a way to visualize how much each application takes.
So far that adds up to 10.55 GB (11.35 if including SoftwareDistribution). I have purposely left out the WinSxS folder, because I have no way to telling what its real on-disk footprint is until I figure out how to scan a folder for hard links, which may not be possible on WindowsRT.
ipad is the Wonderful work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the internet. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher! Come on over and visit my website . Thanks =) wax ester ukash
ukash
You didn't respond to the point, which is that you *can* attach external media. And you can't do that with the iPad.
Apologies! The point was simply wrong, I guess why I skipped over it.
You can read media off an SD card (or other devices that mount via USB) on an iPad using the camera connection kit.
Surface wins on this functionality checkbox.
The functionality is the same, the surface makes it slightly more convenient.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In comparison my full blown Fedora Linux 64 bit installation is using 7.8GB. That is the system + a bunch of applications like Office, Firefox, Gimp, development tools, Wine, tools, some games.
I LOLed quite hard when I saw how much hard disk a blank (i.e. only the system) Windows Vista installation was using. Something like 8GB only for an empty system. I run a check and saw that most of the space is used by DLLs in 10 times duplicates.
My guess is Microsoft is extra blowing the system up so a) they can say more is better and b) to slow down illegal downloads of Windows.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
My ZX80 didn't have a hard drive. It had 1KB of RAM and a crappy cable to connect to an even crappier cassette deck!
Now ALL of you get the heck off MY lawn
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
Office is probably half or more of that.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Hell, most people around here probably don't even know that the 5.25" drive slot we have today are actually half height... my first computer was an XT with an MFM hard drive so slow it actually ran faster double-spaced.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
but with 10gb open on my N7 don't miss it too much
If you simply buy the device ahead of time with a bit of extra space, it really does not get in the way - it's so easy to swap in and out media that really you mostly have to factor the size of the applications you like to use plus a decent buffer for games/media.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're going to need them.
...a first class citizen. Apps, music, pictures, videos, etc. all need to be able to reside on the memory card and work the same.
Microsoft would have been different if they had 32gb of useable space & put their os on a 20-32gb partition. It would have cost what a extra $30-50 tops, and for the $499 that it starts off at, should have enough in there to be different.
But they are not.
Why the hell would I need a recovery partition on there all the time...
oh...
That will probably be the Surface tablet's most-used feature.
It's too bad it doesn't have a microSD slot. It could come with a recovery partition on a card that you could pay extra for.
A portable computer with a screen and a keyboard for > $600 is called a laptop. I don't think you can even buy a laptop anymore with a 64 GB hard drive even if you were drunk enough to want one.
U get less cpu, less software choice (no windows apps run on it), less ram, less storage...and why???
By the time MS awakens from their batshit insanity it will be too late.
Ever tried to remove google maps, you tube, more shit and yahoo finance from your android thing?
Privacy is terrorism.
It has to be a restaurant now?
Or any other well-known place with open Wi-Fi that's not your home.
Damn Apple and its walled Olive Garden.
Cute :-)
13GB used just by the initial install??? Wait until service pack 3!
they call it the usb port on surface, and its included in the sale price.
In other words, the Surface is more expensive than it has to be for millions of people who do not need a USB port built in.
I never said it was not extra on the iPad. Just that the iPad can in fact do what you and others claim it cannot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why would you store anything except the last couple of movies, recent photographs, videos and documents? It is designed for efficiently managing and working with current but transitory content. If you want storage, connect it to a homegroup (2 clicks), acquire a storage device or home server.
Holy cow, that's huge... By comparison, Apple iDevices use about 2.5GB for iOS. I know Windows is a hog, but damn.
You can write to the card when the XOOM is a USB disk, which means all the code necessary to do writes is on the hardware.
When an Android device is acting as a USB mass storage device, it processes requests from the host computer to read and write 512-byte blocks on the SD card. All file system processes, such as the patented method of writing to VFAT, are happening on the host computer. Thus, the Android device performs no patented processes in this mode.
I remember my first HD. It had the handy form factor of a shoe box. It needed an external power supply. It made a most frightful racket. It weighed a ton. And it did hold a whopping 10MB.
Not many of us can claim their first computer was a 640k, 16 color, 2 floppy, 10MB HD Decision Mate V. That's NCR. In the early 80ies a computer deal with Iran fell through(for some reason or another...it's got something to do with changing the name of the country from Persia to Iran and them snubbing Jimmy Carter) leaving NCR stranded with storehouses full of those amazing machines. My dad having worked for 15 years for those bozos nabbed one of them. Well, he payed 600 deutschmarks for it and got one for his son. My fate was sealed ever since.
Thanks, dad. I could have been a literature scholar if it hadn't been for you. Hrumph.
20 minutes into the future
everybody needs a usb port.
For what?
Keyboard: Bluetooth.
Printing: WIFi
Data Transfer:WiFi/Cell data
Even for loading images with an EyeFi card I don't need to plug in a card, or I get images over the network from my iPhone.
I have a USB adaptor but I only use it for loading images from a DSLR, a specialized need that I would not claim more than a tiny fraction of users need.
Here's a thought: Not every person on earth needs to plug in a 300 baud serial coupling modem you still have via a serial port to USB adaptor. Not that such a thing would work on Surface either...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I also have (almost) the entire libraries of every 8-64 bit video game system stored on it.
Including Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and Final Fantasy IX for the 32-bit PlayStation? Those alone are more than a gig each.
Each country allow redownload of all items available in the individual store, here i denmark there are no american tv-series, yet other programs are possible to download, and i have redownloaded apps i purchased in finland:
YOUR OLD PURCHASES ARE INVISIBLE IN THE PURCHASED LIST, YET YOU CAN STILL DOWNLOAD THEM FOR FREE BY SELECTING EACH APP IN THE STORE!!
From the iOS rules:
5) After you change countries, you will no longer receive application update notifications in iTunes for the apps you purchased in your original country. However, you'll still receive update notifications on your iOS device for any applications installed on it. In addition, you'll be able to download previously purchased applications again for free if they are available on your new country's store. You will not be charged and the download will not appear on your Purchased page. If a previously purchased application is not available in your new country, you will not be able to download it again for free.
lol, just read all these comments and realised that slashdot must be where all the geriatrics hangout :p
But seriously, its Microbloat. Did people really expect anything different from baulmerware ? seriously ? :p
Microsoft says on its website that the 32GB Surface has 16GB of free space while the 64GB version has 45GB free.
You Sir are a moron. Every single device on earth has the same issue. Next he will sue because no one told him 1gig is 1024mb not 1000mb.