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Everyone’s been making fun of the Surface Pro for being so stingy on hard drive space. The 128GB version of the Surface Pro only has 90GB of free space (originally reported to be 83GB but since boosted). Where the hell did the other 38 gigs go? Well, you could ask the same question to the 128GB version of the MacBook Air. The MBA only has 92GB of free space. What!
And get this. With a few tweaks (namely removing the recovery image), the Surface Pro 128GB actually has more usable space than the equivalent 128GB MacBook Air. Why’s everyone making fun of Microsoft for hijacking space? Hmm?
Ed Bott of ZDNet, and unapologetic Microsoft man, dug deep to determine the true difference in space between the Surface Pro and the MacBook Air. It’s worth a read if you’re into splitting bits from bytes and breaking down binary and base-10. Basically, Apple and Windows report disk size differently leading Microsoft to look worse than it actually is. [ZDNet]
"128GB" Microsoft Surface Pro Only Offers 83GB of Usable Space
128Gb NAND Chips Promise SD Cards with Terabytes of Storage
Samsung Now Building 128GB Flash Memory Chips For Next Year's Superphones
Where are all the fanboys today? I was hoping some entertaining banter would ensue…
We’re all elsewhere having a great time using our lovely well made computers.
Everything’s better on a Mac.
Oh god, don’t encourage them (from either side). We’ve been doing reasonably ok recently, with some actual balanced and friendly discussion breaking out.
OK! Death to all apple users! Nuke them off the face of planet earth!
There, I got the ball rolling
that is a disgusting opinion to have
surly its should be Nuke them off the face of ALL planets
there i have kust pushed the ball a bit further PMSL
WOW…so this tech “journalist” is just a shill for Microsoft
Nah, he’s been known to slate them too. Just that he’s all about Microsoft.
There are 2 MS bloggers on ZDNET who are never biased…. thats Ed and Mary Jo Foley….. they report MS as their job… so people say they are biased… but Mary Jo actually got dropped from several MS events for slating them…..
Somebody isnt a shill just because they point out a 100% relevant fact… in fact calling them a shill, probably means you are a fanboy for the other side of the arguement…..
Stop making sense on a Friday.
Is it beer’o'clock yet?
i have servers to update in the morning… its never beer o’clock
Shill or not, he’s reporting a 100% factually correct thing.
Applie, dirtbag liars that they are (trolol), report using base 10 which is retarded
Ah, but I think you’ll find that the Surface Pro lacks a backlit keyboard….
And the Macbook air just keeps knocking ‘em dead!
https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=macbook+air+vs+commodore
In fairness to apple, by the time the Surface Pro is released in Europe there will be a new macbook air, which has a decent chance of having a base configuration of 128gb and retina display for $1000.
Microsoft announced the Surface Pro 8 1/2 months ago (probably a year by the time it gets released over here). That’s a huge amount of time in the tech world. This means that something that sounded amazing a year ago, very quickly, becomes unimpressive. Microsoft need to pick up speed with there releases or stop announcing them far too early.
I truely want Microsoft to shake up the industry.
If Microsoft is comparing their product to old technology, when their product actually ships, it will be old technology. All it takes is Apple to release the 256GB drive as standard in the MacBook Air and this comparison is dead in the water.
Leaving the recovery system out of the Windows 8 install would be a stupid idea for consumers who don’t make recovery media and what supplier sells recovery media with their computers these days?
Apple won’t be making 256gb SSDs standard, atleast not for the 11 inch model. It will cut into their profits too much. 128gb is very likely though for the 11 inch.
But wouldn’t a Macbook Air come preinstalled with all the iLife apps and iTunes? I wonder how much space Windows Live Essential takes up in it’s entirety?
*because Windows Live Essentials is not bundled with Windows automatically…
Not sure if I’ve got everything installed (I’ve got Mail, Photo Gallery and Writer installed) but the Essentials folder on my PC seems to be 112 MB. Skydrive, which I think comes with the 2012 version of Essentials, took up 5.30 MB on my PC.
Isn’t the argument that the SurfacePro is JUST a tablet though!? Is it actually running the same OS as a £2k PC?
Yes, it runs full windows 8. You’re confusing it with the Surface RT, which doesn’t run a regular full OS.
A better question is why are these operating systems now so bloated that they occupy 38GB? With every computer almost always connected to the internet do I really need tools just in case? wouldn’t a better solution be to have tools and parts of the operating system available to download on demand?
OS software always tend to go with having everything installed which you can later tweak or remove. And bloat comes from UI enhancements that makes it easier for human-computer interactions.
It’s the conundrum of faster computing power to counterbalance software becoming more complex/bloated resulting in relatively the same speed as older generations.
But prettier.
Well… Who cares about apple computers anymore anyway ?
My netbook has a 250GB HDD, split into a 30GB XP partition, and 220GB for linux of which 215GB is usuable. Still can’t see myself replacing this little bundle of outdated parts with anything new in the near future.
Hey Casey Chan, repeating the rambling of a fool on znet who did not even have the machines to test?
Any Mac running OSX is provided with every language and printer driver installed, it also comes with iLife and its many gigabytes of dvd themes and music samples for the likes of Garageband.
A simple format, what any ‘pro’ would do OSX or Windows and you can install OSX and it will take 5GB worth of disk space.
Apple basically install everything they can on the computer, not bloat ware, but to make it easy for a home user and also 1 factory setup for world wide installs. Not being a musician nor speaking hundreds of languages I can get rid.
Rambling of a fool? Stupid little fanboy.
It’s fucking fact, your indignation that precious Apple is actually worse for disk space just shows what a trollop you are
Haha, that’s the spirit!
Leave apple alone !
I had completely forgotten about that one. Well played.
Not to mention that if you actually read the znet article you would see that he does indeed have the machine to test, and actually compares the systems after removing the bloat. Guess what? Apple are still giving base-10 disk sizes rather than base-2 so that they appear favourably sized.
You rambling fool.
Dude if you look at the Disk Utility he is not using an Air as it has a 500GB Seagate disk, the one with his iPod attached. Thats called using your eyes and brain.
You can also see his statement “Update: I’ve updated the chart and the tl;dr paragraph to reflect information provided by readers about current MacBook Air models. See details below, in the Update in item 3″
Now to me, any probably anyone else who can formulate a rational thought, the writer would not need to be supplied with user’s figures for ‘current’ MacBook Air models. He just took screen shots of the Apple website.
He then tries to confuse advertised disk size and reported disk size with installed apps and remaining disk space.
The reported / actual argument has been going on for years and is as much a matter of base 2 as it is for advertising.
Now again try to keep up. Microsoft sell and advertise the surface at 32GB and 64GB. Apple sells the Air at 64GB. So far both companies doing the same yet he somehow tries to say Apple is misleading customers. You get the same chips, probably provided by the same company.
All the nonsense about not being able to remove a Mac recovery drive was again discredited in his own article “Update: A correspondent (and former Apple employee) notes that a utility is available to create an external recovery drive for a Mac”
So why would a ‘journalist’ try to write a piece attacking Apple and defending an unreleased Microsoft product when he, in updates, readily admits he didn’t have the machines, obviously did not do the research into what is possible in terms of the Air and drive space.
Think im an Apple fan boy? Nope, in fact just bought a Z10, but the quality of the articles in Giz are getting a bit poor these days.
@Kauzion go suck one
Big deal, some butt-hurt Apple losers emailed in some screenshots showing a few more gigabytes in their systems which are newer than the ones he tested (and newer than most people’s Airs).
Your rambling bollocks (yes rambling, new favourite word) proves to me that you still don’t understand the difference between base 2 and base 10, and how Apple is reporting misleading disk sizes in the same way that disk drive manufacturers have been. Surprise surprise.
The difference in disk space between the Crapbook Air and the Surface Poo is a few percent.
The zdnet article wasn’t some lie or “ramblings of a fool”, there were two minor points
1) Newer Airs have a newer OSX with slightly smaller footprint
2) There does actually exist a tool that lets you remove the recovery partition
The point of the fucking article, which your pea-brain refuses to accept, is that media criticism of Microsoft, which singles them out for this, is not balanced and the massive competitor is the same.
@yourdad go suck one