Over the past week or so, ever since Microsoft released its Surface RT tablet, consumers have found to their horror, that the advertised 32GB and 64GB memory claims are not true. In fact, in real use the 32GB model has less than 20GB of free space and the 64GB one has around 46GB of space. While this is a common trend, as OEMs normally don’t spell out the user available storage, Microsoft has detailed exactly how much space a consumer will get. Also Read - Surface RT becomes Microsoft's PlayBook, $900 million written off
Firstly, Microsoft states that the memory is reported lower inside the Windows file system because Windows calculates the memory in binaries while Microsoft has used the decimal system to advertise the storage. This automatically results in a reduction of 3GB for the 32GB model and 5GB for the 64GB model. Also Read - Microsoft planning a version of the Surface RT with a Qualcomm CPU: Report
Additionally, Microsoft says Windows RT, Office and other built in apps take up 8GB of space and 5GB of space has been reserved for Windows recovery tools. This equates to 16GB user available storage for the 32GB model and 46GB for the 64GB model. Also Read - Microsoft Surface RT 32GB variant available for unofficial pre-order on eBay for Rs 38,490
On the bright side, the Surface RT does have a microSD card so, if one feels shortchanged with the storage one can always expand it using a microSD card.
