Windows 8 is an incredibly complex operating system, in that it caters to both desktop and tablet needs. What this means is that unlike other competing mobile platforms, Windows powered slates end up with a rather limited amount of usable storage capacity.
Usable storage capacity, in this case being the amount available to users after the OS is installed.
This becomes a fair bit (pun always intended) of issue for users that opt for devices with smaller capacities — for instance with 32GB or 64GB of storage space.
There is a reason why there are no 16GB Windows powered tablets available, after all.
Anyway, Microsoft recently unveiled its second generation Surface slates in multiple storage capacities, as this time around the company wanted to provide users with more choices when it comes to space. And just like it happened with the first generation models, the company has provided complete details.
The update storage FAQ that Redmond recently published confirms that the 512GB variant of the Surface Pro 2 comes with some 451GB of available storage space.
By the same token, the 256GB model offers 212GB of disk space to users.
Surface 2, however, has to make do with drastic cuts once again. The 32GB version has only 18GB of available disk capacity, and the 64GB flavor ups this to a much more serviceable 47GB.
Thank heaven for user expandable storage, then, eh?
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We have all these other tablets with less than 16gb available yet no one complaining “Thank heaven for user expandable storage”
Yet we have a Microsoft Tablet with 18gb available, Windows 8 apps using up little space, people complain.
Yes and free sky drive storage. These complaints clearly point out that you don’t need to be open and fair minded to be a blogger. Personal bias seeps from the pages of nearly all tech NEWS sites.
Yeah I like how you put NEWS. If these are news sites these must only be the Op-ed section
What is the average size an operating system takes up. I would think they could reduce that, but if they’re generally close to the same amount as everyone else, this is a huge double-standard that people keep making a fuss over
As an example, a user-friendly Linux distro takes up less than 5 GB. And that includes dozens of powerful applications, like a full office suite, email client, instant messenger, music manager, video player, pdf viewer, image editor, archive tool, etc.
I will never understand how Windows manages to waste so much disk space right out of the box, while including practically no useful programs.
I’m guessing there probably a view more things installed with Windows or maybe some of the applications like the video player and other programs are different. Maybe they install some stuff just hoping it will be useful to somebody. My last Mac image took up a nice amount of space, but to be honest after all this time, I don’t even know all the stuff we’ve added to it.