LA lawyer files suit against Microsoft over Surface storage capacity

[micropage7]

Los Angeles-based lawyer Andrew Sokolowski has filed a suit against Microsoft due to the fact the company’s Surface RT tablet ships with less free space than advertised. The attorney believes Microsoft intentionally buried details about the actual amount of usable storage out of the box.

Sokolowski said he purchased a 32GB Surface RT tablet last week but ran out of storage space after loading some music and Word files onto it. After a bit of research, he realized that only 16GB of the claimed 32GB was on tap for him to use

Lawyers representing him (lawyers representing a lawyer, weird, right?) are seeking class action status alleging false advertising and unfair business practices. The suit was filed earlier this week in the Superior Court in Los Angeles with the goal of getting Microsoft to change how they advertise the tablet’s capacity.

Microsoft released a statement on the matter saying that customers understand that the operating system and pre-installed applications reside on the device’s storage, effectively reducing the total free space. Redmond also pointed out that customers can add additional storage via the microSD card slot or through the USB port.

The company posted a FAQ on their website earlier this month outlining exactly how much free space each capacity tablet ships with. If you missed that post, here’s a quick refresher. The 32GB Surface RT has only 16GB of usable space with a fresh install of Windows while the 64GB model ships with 46GB of free space.

http://www.techspot.com/news/50828-l...-capacity.html

[DOM]

Why I no get all my 32GB XD

How big is W8 anyways ?

I bet it also comes with a lot of crap like that all do pre installed

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by DOM

Why I no get all my 32GB XD

How big is W8 anyways ?

I bet it also comes with a lot of crap like that all do pre installed

not that bad, actually. I got 3dm11 and all sorts of other benching apps installed:





of course, I'm not using the RT version. Oh look, I only need 31 GB.

[drdeathx]

LOL, he is an attorney and can only afford 32G. He must suck pretty bad.

[newtekie1]

Does any table, or for that matter any electronic device, give you full use of the space advertised? The OS and other files generally always take up some space.

[adulaamin]

Can I also sue HDD companies that only give me 931gb instead of the full 1tb for the advertised 1tb hdds that I buy?

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by adulaamin

Can I also sue HDD companies that only give me 931gb instead of the full 1tb for the advertised 1tb hdds that I buy?

No because they clearly state that 1GB=1,000,000,000Bytes, it isn't their fault that software companies use the wrong number for Giga.

[mediasorcerer]

if the cover starts fraying, he can include that too.

[de.das.dude]

first it was planking, now suing is catching on as the next "thing".

[xBruce88x]

I'm pretty sure its the total capacity that was being advertised in the first place... not free space.

[DaveK]

Why is he suing over this? This is nothing new, everyone knows this. They're advertising it as a 32GB model which is what it is. Tough shit that it doesn't have 32GB of usable space, that would require it to be 48GB or whatever.

[animal007uk]

What an idiot is all i can say, Another sad pathetic excuse for a human, Give him the machine without an os on it and then he will be moaning about that to.

[cheesy999]

Originally Posted by DaveK

Why is he suing over this? This is nothing new, everyone knows this. They're advertising it as a 32GB model which is what it is. Tough shit that it doesn't have 32GB of usable space, that would require it to be 48GB or whatever.

Originally Posted by animal007uk

What an idiot is all i can say, Another sad pathetic excuse for a human, Give him the machine without an os on it and then he will be moaning about that to.

Losing 50% of the available space, when it's competitors only use ~2gb is quite a large problem.

It's not really reasonable to give people something with almost half the space any other 32gb tablet would have on it and not tell them before they buy it.

Having a tablet OS that takes up 16gb is going to be a large problem with these windows tablets.

The issue here is that a 32Gb Apple/Android table would have ~28-29Gb of space on it, where the windows ones apparently have ~16Gb

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Sad thing is this guy will win.

[Frag Maniac]

As mentioned in the other post about this, "storage" space does not automatically imply all of it is "free" out of the box. This lawyer may as well try to sue all the HDD manufacturers whom say their drives are 1TB when you only get 931GB of actual space. LOL

As xBruce mentioned, they only give reference to the total capacity. I see no claim that 32GB storage means 32GB actual free space WITH all included apps and OS installed. If this jerk wins it will only be due to loopholes that allow such scumbags to manipulate the legal system, or an idiot judge.

An interesting scenario would be if this lawyer lost because when asked why he had no closing statement, he said he had no space left on his Surface to store it. LOL

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by cheesy999

Losing 50% of the available space, when it's competitors only use ~2gb is quite a large problem.

When your selling a 32GB Tablet with 16GB of usable storage space for the same price as the competitors 16GB table it becomes much less of a problem.

[razor2890]

Guys... I think the lawyer is right in suing Microsoft.....
If you are advertising 32GB you should at-least provide 22-26GB Space for storage after OS & other files installations....
I have a 32GB i-phone & it gives me around ~29GBs Storage space after ios installed...

Generally any product will always remain in the 80% of the advertised storage capacity....
I think MS should either reduce the size of Win OS & its application & provide with 25Gigs of space....OR
They should simply state new GB (number)...
They cant advertise it as 16GB product bcoz it gives complete 16GB & originally has more space...

But,
It is not illegal to advertise it as after 16GB 32 is the standard...
But it is not ethical...Some people may actually purchase it thinking they will get 25gigs but end up getting only ~2gigs more than others...

ORRR

Microsoft is paying this guy to sue them to gain customers.....Microsoft has done many things in the past...All they simply care about is publicity & business....They are Purely Business oriented people..never think about inventing & R&D kinda stuff.... All they do is acquisition of companies to improve their product...
IN Microsoft R&D and M&A(merger & acquisition) are one and the same thing....

A friend of mine in Microsoft says that Microsoft promotes the piracy of its OSes for home usage so that it will become more popular than other OSes... & it has worked as a CHARM because 99.99% of PCs in INDIA have windows OS... The .01% have Linux/ubuntu for networking companies....
Only a handful of people who can afford a PC will be using any other OS at Home here(thats about 30-40 Crore customers)....

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Does any table, or for that matter any electronic device, give you full use of the space advertised? The OS and other files generally always take up some space.

No, but I bet he's going to win and that will be coming just like the whole 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes thing. Why are people so mathematically illiterate?

We need to stop using specifics and start advertising to the idiots using a cup anology: "This cup holds this much. The OS takes up 50%."

[micropage7]

yeah consumer need to get educated too
most people know when it said 32gb it has 32gb space. not taken by os or preinstalled apps

i guess for Ms is not right too to advert that the stuff has 32gb without tell that 32gb space would be used by os and preinstall apps

[natr0n]

Originally Posted by de.das.dude

first it was planking, now suing is catching on as the next "thing".

planking laywers is the new thing

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

Sad thing is this guy will win.

Hope so, because I am filing one with samsung. My 16GB phone doesn't have 16GB of free space either, my 32GB only show 28.8GB this is in the bag.

[Depth]

This is silly. I have 10 out of 12GB free memory, I am not suing OCZ for that.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by Depth

This is silly. I have 10 out of 12GB free memory, I am not suing OCZ for that.

Not even remotely the same thing. Also, if you're seeing only 10 GB I think you might have a problem.

[lZKoce]

This lawsuit can happen only in USA....I can pick the cheapest unknown brand of USB flash memory and on the back of the plastic packaging it will warn me, that I will not be getting the advertized size as usable space. Let alone a whole tablet.

[Velvet Wafer]

well, applause for that lawyer guy, that is what MS is getting for not beeing honest and assholes... doesnt matter if Apple or MS, big companies need to get sued, all that money in one place can only mean greed, asshattery and dishonesty. i hope he wins and gets as much as possible... this is only a small step towards a world where Corporations are loosing more and more power, but at least it is one.
Every free person needs to understand, that every major company, would gladly sell the dried remains of your whole family, if they could just make a little profit with it, without getting caught... dont trust people that could easily buy and get and do everything they need,and want to do, wheter legal or illegal