
Surface Pro versus MacBook Air: Who's being dishonest with storage space? - CrankyBear
http://www.zdnet.com/surface-pro-versus-macbook-air-whos-being-dishonest-with-storage-space-7000011009/
======
callahad
This is frustrating. The Surface Pro has a 128 GB option and goes _down_ from
there to 64 GB. The Macbook Air has a 128 GB option and goes _up_ from there
to 512 GB.

 _Edit: this is factually incorrect. There_ is _also a 64 GB MacBook Air model
on offer; I forgot about it. I apologize._

~90 GB of free space on both 128 GB models seems reasonable. Stepping down to
just ~26 GB free on the 64 GB model seems unreasonable: the usable capacity is
less than _half_ of the advertised capacity.

I feel similarly about the recovery partition discussion. If you remove the
recovery image, I presume you will not be able to recover the Surface Pro
without additional media. The Macbook Air, on the other hand, will allow you
to do a fresh re-installation of OS X over the Internet with a completely
blank disk: it's baked into the firmware. Therefore, removing the recovery
image results in a feature disparity between the systems. _Grumble._

~~~
Osiris
Microsoft tries to address that issue by including an SD card slot for
expanded storage. However, the +$300 that you have to pay to Apple to upgrade
from 128GB to 256GB is also completely absurd.

~~~
kabdib
That jump in storage is like printing money. Flash is, what, less than a buck
a gigabyte?

~~~
lloeki
And is dead in minutes under heavy writing. SD cards are really bad working
storage, and should only be used as transitive medium.

~~~
hackmiester
I would like to see someone kill an SD card in "minutes." My camera shoots HD
video at some stupidly high bit rate and stores it onto my SD card at damn
near as fast as the card will take it, and I do this a lot. There are
thousands of people who do it even more than I do, and it can take months or
years to go through a card.

~~~
lloeki
The problem is inconsistency[0]:

> (April 17th) We are currently testing a sample of 40 4GB microSD cards from
> Sandisk to failure

> Its May now and still no cards have failed.

> we were testing a card from a customer yesterday on a TS-7553 and it failed
> the DoubleStore stress tests within the day. [...] The test failed at
> approximately 13 GB of raw data written

> The ATP card failed a 3rd time after 65GB of data written.

> Another, separate ATP card failed after 877 GB of write activity

If the card is MLC and there's no or limited wear leveling, repeated local
writes will shut the card dead quickly ("limited" as in wear leveling being
applied only among e.g a 4MB group of cells, Sandisk happens to do that). I've
also heard of some controllers implementing wear leveling, muddling the test
results.

Some cards are truly reliable, others are craptastic, and everything in
between is possible. The problem is you can't trust a brand and go for it, and
getting the technical details, if at all possible, involves digging into
cryptic and hard to find documentations.

I can't find the link again to a test of someone who tested various card
brands and had them die semi-reliably within 15 minutes.

[0]: [http://forum.embeddedarm.com/showthread.php?3-SD-card-
endura...](http://forum.embeddedarm.com/showthread.php?3-SD-card-endurance-
test)

------
InclinedPlane
Yadda yadda yadda, doesn't matter.

When people buy a laptop they expect the OS will take up a good chunk of the
storage space. When people buy a tablet they don't have that expectation.

More importantly, when the free space is significantly less than half the
advertized storage and there is no warning that's the case people are going to
be surprized and upset, and rightfully so.

In a Macbook Air the worst you get is a reduction to about 70-75% of the
listed storage capacity (in the 128 or 64 gb models), which is annoying but
not crazy. In the Surface Pro 64 model you are reduced to about 1/3 of the
initial capacity, which is ridiculous and definitely deserves some sort of
warning on the packaging, I would think. Expecting a reduction by 1/4 is
reasonable common sense, experiencing a reduction by 2/3 is surprising.

~~~
guelo
Shit Apple fanboys say: 3/4ths is totally reasonable. 2/3rds is outrageous!

~~~
_Simon
I've no skin in this. To be honest its an article by someone that has a track
record for being economic with facts and it's on ZDnet, which is good enough
reason to ignore it. However I don't see so much "fanboys" (please don't, it's
childish), as people desperately trying to prove the authors point. I'd
suggest at this stage and as a neutral the exact opposite is the case.

~~~
scholia
You're wrong. Ed Bott has a track record of being very accurate with the
facts.

You are, of course, welcome to produce some bulletproof _factual_ examples
(since you have just shown your opinions are not worth anything) to prove
otherwise.

~~~
_Simon
Calm down. He has been paid by Microsoft in the past so his opinions are
hardly partisan and being economic with facts means that he often tells half a
story, generally Microsofts. Like I said, I don't care either way, what I _do_
care about is needless name calling and veiled ad hominems.

~~~
telcodud
This was a really good read for me: The Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy (link:
<http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html>)

~~~
scholia
Nice page, but I don't think _Simon realises he made an ad hominem attack on
Ed Bott and ZDNet. _Simon's language is rather vague ("needless name calling"
-- where exactly?) and sloppy (its where he means it's; "hardly partisan" -
what does he think he means?), so his command of English may be part of his
problem.

Either way, based on long experience, I always suspect that anyone who says
"To be honest" really means "I am just about to lie".

~~~
_Simon
Wow. Arrogant much? The _truth_ is that you are not really interested in
actually discussing the facts. Ed Bott was _paid_ by Microsoft to promote
Windows 7 in his blog back in 2008. His views are not partisan and his
articles as a result are meritless. He, in simple words just for you, is
biased in favor of Microsoft. ZDNet, much like other online IT tabloids like
The Register, habitually publish nothing but trash that is designed for the
sole purpose of advertising views. That this and other similar stories have
recently featured so prominently has set alarm bells ringing.

 _To be honest_ , I really don't care what you think because so far you've
done nothing but troll me. Using "sloppy" spelling as a reason to discredit
what I said as well as calling me a liar? Come on, you surely can do better
than that!

~~~
scholia
The truth is that you have yet to provide any facts to back up your smearing
of Ed Bott and ZDNet.

> "His views are not partisan"

As I pointed out before, you have problems understanding and/or using the
English language. Partisan means "an adherent or supporter of a person, group,
party, or cause, especially a person who shows a biased, emotional
allegiance." <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/partisan>

Now, the gist of your unsupported attack on Bott is that he is partisan, but
you keep saying he is "not partisan".

See what I did there? I pointed out your mistake, and I supported it with
independent factual evidence. If you want to take part in a grown up
conversation, you should learn to do the same.

> "I really don't care what you think because so far you've done nothing but
> troll me."

Again, you obviously don't have a clue what trolling is. However, I reckon you
can probably use Google to figure it out. Calling you out for bullshit is not
trolling.

I have previously pointed out that you are attacking someone without producing
any evidence, but you continually resort to ad hominem attacks (calling me a
troll is another ad hominem attack, following your ad hominem attack on Bott).

You claim to be against ad hominem attacks and name calling (see above) but
this is _exactly_ what you are doing! This fits perfectly with the strategy of
using the word "honest" when you are being dishonest.

Still, you can prove you are honest pretty easily, as follows....

Show us some evidence that you have a clue what you are talking about. Bott
posts evidence of his expertise and (very high) professional standing, and I
linked to that above. Where is yours?

Next, produce the evidence that Bott was "paid by Microsoft", and under what
circumstances.

If you can't support your claim with evidence then, sadly, nobody has any
alternative but to decide that you are a liar. It's not just me. Rational
people want to hear rational arguments based on checkable facts. That's not
too much to ask of you, is it?

> "The truth is that you are not really interested in actually discussing the
> facts."

Another ad hominem attack on me that attempts to divert the discussion away
from the point. The truth is that I keep asking you for facts and you have not
provided any. None.

So, are you going to keep posting bullshit replies? It might not be a wisest
approach. As it is (and this is a factual observation) you're just making
yourself look stupid.

------
rbn
This is for people who want tablet + laptop but dont want carry+charge+pay for
2 devices. It's really not that difficult to understand, I dont know why HN
has such a hard time understanding this.

"But the iPad is a better tablet!!!", yeh but the surface is a full system.
"But the air is better laptop!!" yeh but the surface has tablet capabilities.
"Buy an Air + iPad!!" I dont want to pay extra plus its a hassle to carry +
manage 2 devices

~~~
mikeash
What are "tablet capabilities", exactly? If the size and weight are similar,
what does "tablet" get you that "laptop" doesn't?

~~~
TylerE
Touchscreen.

~~~
dragontamer
A ton of the new Windows 8 Laptops have touchscreen capabilities now. So...
not really.

In fact, Asus Windows 8 Laptops will soon have Leap Motion, which is a far far
superior option to touch screen. Hopefully Apple follows suit with their
Macbook Pros.

To be fair, I'm not as excited about Surface anymore, as I am more excited
about everyone else actually. XPS 12 duo seems to be the superior convertible,
and the soon to be Lenovo Helix is the best executed detachable that I've seen
so far. XPS Duo 12, Helix, and Surface all offer 1080p. Surface's major
differentiator is actually the pressure sensitive pen that comes bundled with
the device. I'd expect the Surface to be the best artist tool of the tablet /
laptops out so far. Asus differentiating themselves with the Leap Motion puts
them on my radar though.

But really, it goes to show that with Windows 8, you have a ton of good
choices coming up. Whats most important? Solid Keyboard / Nub / Touchpad ? Get
the Lenovo Helix.

Wanna experiment with futuristic controls? Get a Asus Leap-based Windows 8
convertible when they come out.

Like the Pen? Get the surface.

~~~
stcredzero
_> In fact, Asus Windows 8 Laptops will soon have Leap Motion, which is a far
far superior option to touch screen_

How do you know? Have you tried it yourself? Have you tried it outside a demo
context? Have you played an extended gaming session? Done actual context
creation? You'd have to have done all that before you know it's not, "Hello
1989 called. Wants its Powerglove back."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Glove>

I know of what I speak. I interfaced a Mac with one in 1989.

~~~
dragontamer
Independent reviews of the developer kits of Leap Motion have started coming
in.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhItSt5zHyQ>

------
beagle3
tl;dr: On the 128GB models (Surface Pro vs. Macbook Air), they both leave
~90GB free space.

The problem for Microsoft is that they are competing at the same time against
laptops and tablets. For someone who's looking for a tablet, it loses badly to
an iPad (the free space sticks out, but it is by now means the only place an
iPad wins). For someone who's looking for a laptop, it loses to many laptops
(in price, performance, ergonomics - whatever it is you care about, there's
something that handily beats the Surface Pro).

Are there any people who are looking for something that's sort-of-a-tablet and
sort-of-a-laptop, and are willing to get a device that is not competitive as
either? We'll soon find out.

My own experience leads me to believe that until you have perfected a niche
(neither laptops or tablets are there yet), extreme specialization always wins
against generalization.

~~~
cooldeal
>For someone who's looking for a laptop, it loses to many laptops (in price,
performance, ergonomics - whatever it is you care about, there's something
that handily beats the Surface Pro

Is there an ultrabook laptop with a 1080p touchscreen, an active digitizer
with a stylus, atleast Core i5 for $1000 to $1100 ? I am not being facetious
here, I am looking to buy something to replace my 6 year old laptop so looking
for real suggestions here.

~~~
MichaelGG
I'm in a similar position. The ThinkPad Helix might be a winner, in a month or
two:

[http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/tablet/thinkpad/thinkpad-h...](http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/tablet/thinkpad/thinkpad-
helix/)

I loved the X201 tablet (apart from heating issues), but the crap resolution
and 16:9 on that line makes it not worth having.

I have a feeling that this year, we're going to see a lot of decent small-
sized, full res devices, thanks to Apple's Retina push. Haswell is supposed to
be out mid-year so that might also help create some better devices.

~~~
DuskStar
That laptop looked interesting to me, so I started looking into the specs PDF,
where I find this gem:

PRELOADED APPLICATIONS: Lenovo Companion, Lenovo QuickSnip, Lenovo Support,
Lenovo Quick Launch, Lenovo Cloud Storage, Lenovo Settings, Microsoft® Office
2010 Trial, Intel® AppUp Skype™, AccuWeather, Amazon Kindle, Evernote
Skitch,Evernote Security, Rara – Music

As people are complaining over how little free space the surface pro has, I
wonder what the reaction to all of these on a 128gb machine would be...

EDIT: Formatting

------
_debug_
Again, the top comment on an HN thread involving Apple is one that supports
Apple by digging up some "fact" or the other that makes Apple look OK. This
has always been this ridiculous.

At least AAPL investors are pricing in a future loss of earnings as everyone
except the hardcore fanboys move to more open platforms that are priced at 75%
to 50% of Apple products and allow you to plug in USB and play along well with
other manufacturer's hardware by implementing open protocols like DLNA.

Anecdote : I bought an LG TV and discovered without doing any additional
setup, my Samsung phone now shows a TV icon on the photos, and when I clicked
it, I was surprised to find the photo pop up on the TV. As I swipe my finger
on the phone, the photos scroll on the TV. Voila! I honestly don't know
whether this is some kind of PnP broadcast, DLNA, WiDi, or what!

Next : my HP laptop has an Intel WiDi app on it and the TV has a "Wifi Screen
Share". Hmm, let's see...bang! Laptop screen now wirelessly mirrored on the
TV. LG TV, Samsung phone, HP laptop. I bet Apple products would not work with
anything other than Apple this way.

~~~
bjustin
Yep, just like everyone moved from iPods to other MP3 players that show up as
removable storage.

------
incongruity
I think part of this comes from the abstractions used for tablets vs.
"traditional" computers. (With the surface being viewed as a tablet by most
consumers, vs. the air being seen as a traditional laptop).

In tablets, the trend seems to be to abstract away/hide the OS as much as
possible – it isn't something that runs _on_ the machine, it _is_ the machine
– if that makes sense. Compare this to the laptop world where we're all
engrained to conceive of the OS as something that is installed _on_ the
machine and in most/all cases is able to be swapped out (insert plug for your
favorite Linux distro here, etc.)

So, given that, most consumers willingly accept the space the OS takes up as a
given on the laptop yet the same people see the listing the tablet storage
including the space required for the OS as disingenuous.

When you want to abstract away something, if your abstraction leaks, it
usually hampers the user experience or user perception of the offering – as
this case illustrates (IMHO).

~~~
barista
Actually for Microsoft a tablet was always a fully capable computer. It's
apple who came up with a big iPod touch and started calling it a tablet.

~~~
incongruity
Yes, but how do _consumers_ see it?

It's framed as competing with the iPad - and most see it as a tablet, I'd
wager.

~~~
scholia
The Surface RT is a tablet (that also happens to run Microsoft Office). The
Surface Pro is a PC (that also happens to work as a tablet).

I can understand consumers being confused (though I have no evidence that they
are) but surely it's not too hard for HN readers to understand...

------
grecy
> And with one minor tweak that _doesn’t affect the system’s capabilities in
> any way_

If that were the case, why would that feature even be included? Obviously it
does impact the capabilities, when things go wrong.

Also interesting to note they call it a "minor tweak". What percentage of
tablet (or laptop) users even know about a recovery image? I small fraction,
I'd wager.

~~~
polshaw
The suggestion was that you can retain the recovery partition contents on
another drive (eg a USB drive), which is something that supposedly can't be
done on the MBA. [e: maybe you can.. although the link does not make it clear
that it can be _removed_ from the MBA's disk, and the point was really about
the saved space]

I agree few will likely know about it, but that doesn't make it invalid, nor
is the space saved irrelevant to those that do.

~~~
X-Istence
Or even better, Apple now lets you boot from the web using the built-in
firmware for recovery...

See internet recovery: <http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/>

------
DannoHung
The numbers reported for the 128 version weren't what people were griping
about.

------
adnrw
> Microsoft has been pummeled by critics this week over supposedly inadequate
> storage space in its new Surface Pro.

It wasn't about the inadequacy of the storage space in and of itself – 25/64GB
or 90/128GB is not decidedly inadequate for all users, and is (as the article
explains) in the ballpark of usable space for comparable laptops.

There's a separate issue regarding the advertising of storage industry-wide
that has merit, but this issue is about the amount of usable storage space in
the context of the rest of the tablet market.

Sure, the Surface is comparable on storage space to competing laptops
including those offered by Apple, but it's not even in the same ballpark as
competing tablets.

Microsoft is pitching the Surface as a competitor to both tablets and laptops,
separately and together. It therefore needs to compete against features of
both, and it seems it can't when it comes to this specific feature.

~~~
r00fus
Even the 64GB MB Air gives you more room than the Surface Pro 64GB. About 10GB
more. That's 33% more usable space.

It's not clear that MS should have released the 64GB model for Surface Pro -
too much overhead just looks poorly designed.

------
ari_elle
Nitpick (and most likely even considered OT):

\- Mac OS shows storage space the right way, because it shows capacity in
KB/GB (which is base 10 by definition)

\- Windows OS shows storage space the wrong way, because while using base 2,
it still claims to show you space in KB,GB (but actually it's GiB)

To what is generally better: Well for the common user GB might make more
sense, since every storage device is marketed with GB in mind.

 _<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Quantities_of_bytes> _

And people who feel cheated because of less storage space seem to ignore the
fact that this tablet is running a full Windows Operating system.

I guess it's just the mindset of many to think of tablets as "big smartphones"
instead of compact full-fledged computers.

~~~
curiousdannii
When did the redefining of a KB from 1024 bytes to 1000 bytes happen? And has
it truly happened? If you get 2GB RAM don't you get 2048 MB, not 2000 MB? I've
always thought it was just the harddrive manufacturers being stingy, claiming
their drives had more than they actually did.

~~~
Uchikoma
The switch - although not in my head - came when more people got computers,
cameras and iPods, being exposed to storage compared to computers, where they
didn't care or know. People care about storage since the store large amounts
of mp3 and images.

1000KB = 1GB, 1000GB = 1TB is easier for most people than 1024KiB = 1GiB,
1024Gib = 1TiB.

~~~
scholia
Manufactures do it because bigger numbers sell better than smaller ones.

Which works fine until people create or download a few files and find they
have been conned: they don't have as much usable space as they thought they'd
paid for.

------
Tloewald
So having "proven" Windows 8 has no advertising (by somehow claiming the apps
with ads weren't really part of Windows 8) Ed Bott turns to proving the 128GB
Surface has more storage space than the Macbook Air by deleting tons of stuff
from the Surface and nearly freeing up as much space as the latter has by
default.

------
Dylan16807
This is ridiculous. The complaint was always about the 64GB model. 75% is
fine. 35% is not. Very simple.

~~~
barista
and 64 GB MBA has the same problem.

~~~
Dylan16807
Does it? A cursory google suggests that the 64GB MBA also comes with the drive
about 70-75% free.

------
comex
Note that the OS X recovery partition is only 650 MB, since it downloads the
actual installation image from the internet on the fly.

Are you sure that the Surface Pro's disk actually offers 127.90 GB of block
device? To my inexpert ears, that seems to imply that it's actually larger
than 128 GB, which sounds wrong.

------
mattbee
Wow, and I thought Disk Utility was only a piece of shit for hiding partitions
from me :-)

We've had at least one dispute with a customer who didn't get the "advertised"
storage space when buying hosting - it's easy to you say this server has 8 x
500GB drives in a RAID10, but we've had a customer unhappy when 1.9 binary
terabytes of data didn't fit onto that after RAID metadata, filesystem
overhead etc.

So the new product (bigv.io) expresses storage and RAM in binary gigabytes,
and I'm thinking I might convert all the dedicated server storage
specifications away from lying drive manufacturer sizes, even if that means
advertising a 465GiB disc. (or should we advertise size after ext3 overhead
arrrggghh).

~~~
klodolph
I hope you stick with the decimal units, because it means that if I have 8 x
500 GB drives, that's 4 GB. If I have 8 x 500 GiB, then I have 3.90625 TiB,
which I need a calculator for. Frustrating and annoying.

Stick with metric, it's easier on us humans.

------
rjempson
The fact this conversation is taking place is very droll. Articles are being
written, comments and forums are running hot just because so many people are
effectively saying "How dare someone say that my favourite vendor's computer
has less disk space than another (obviously inferior) vendor"

~~~
mmcconnell1618
Isn't anyone just happy to not have a spinning platter of metal in their
laptop? There has always been a difference between unformatted and formatted
space on disks. Look at an old box of 1.44MB floppy disks and you'll clearly
see that formatted space and unformatted space are reported separately. The
same thing goes for hard drives. What file system you put on the HD can make a
difference too.

There will always be somewhat less space than the full raw capacity. In this
case the problem appears to be shipping large pre-installed software and OS on
a smallish SSD. Five years from now when higher capacity is cheaper, no one
will even care.

------
nicholassmith
Interesting he mentions removing the Windows recovery partition, but not the
ML one which is hardly top secret knowledge.

Apple is no better, but none of the other manufacturers are. Storage space is
one of those wonderful facts which turn out not to be as factual they could
be.

~~~
X-Istence
Apple has at least taken up using the manufacturer advertised figures instead
of using the real size. So a 1TB drive in Mac OS X looks like it can store 1
TB of data. If you were to download 1 TiB of data from the internet you'd find
that your 1 TB disk is a little small ;-).

------
wtallis
The author wrongly dismisses the impact of the SSD's spare area on usable
storage:

> "The parts about wear-leveling blacks and bad blocks are just part of how
> SSDs work. On a new SSD these numbers should be very small."

This is absolutely wrong. Modern SSDs reserve a significant part of their NAND
even when new. For example, the Micron C400 used in the Surface Pro has 128GiB
of NAND and reserves 6.8% as spare area, and thus presents to the OS as a
119.2GiB block device. An Intel SSD 525 with the same 128GiB of NAND reserves
12.6% spare area, so it presents 111.8GiB to the OS. The author's MacBook Air
seems to have about 11.7% spare area. They're still fundamentally the same
amount of storage, but drives with smaller spare area will generally perform
worse when they are nearly full, and having less spare area can also reduce
the longevity of the drive.

~~~
wmf
There's still a problem where Apple appears to be advertising a 120 GB SSD as
128 GB.

~~~
wtallis
All SSDs advertised as either 128GB or 120GB come with exactly 128GiB of total
NAND, with 5-15% reserved as spare area. If the spare area is chosen to be
6.87%, then that exactly accounts for the difference between a binary gigabyte
(GiB) and decimal gigabyte, so a 128GiB SSD can have exactly 128 decimal GB of
usable space.

~~~
wmf
But Apple's SSD doesn't have 128 GB of usable space; it has 121 GB. Other
companies that advertise 128 GB give you 128 GB of usable space.

------
rickdale
I recently purchased a 4TB external hard drive. It was the first hard drive I
have ever come across that had exactly 4tb of free space when I opened it.
Usually its a little bit less. I can remember my 80gig hard drive I spent all
summer saving up for back around 2000 only have 66gigs and being totally
bummed out.

I know with flash memory the units are more exact, but are they getting better
with the spinning hd's with the space accuracy?

~~~
callahad
> _are they getting better with the spinning hd's with the space accuracy?_

It's not so much a question of accuracy as it is one of units. Storage
manufacturers have typically used GB, software has typically used GiB, labeled
as "GB."

    
    
        1 GB  = 10^9 = 1,000,000,000 bytes
        1 GiB = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes
    

Which is why your 80,000,000,000 byte HD is 80 GB on the box but 74.5 GiB when
plugged in.

OS X 10.6 decided to harmonize the two: it reports size in terms of GB (10^9),
abandoning GiB (2^30), meaning what you see on the box finally matches what
you see in software. The downside is that your files _appear_ larger than you
may be used to, since that "1.00 GB" (GiB) file is now being reported as "1.07
GB."

------
S_A_P
The difference is in expectations. The Surface Pro may be slightly immune to
that, but when someone buys a tablet, they are buying a media consumption
device, so that they can download and read/watch/listen to files at their
leisure. There is little file system access, and it is largely abstracted
away.

A PC is a general purpose device with full access to the file system and the
ability to do much more than a traditional tablet. If the surface is a
touchscreen laptop it should be marketed as such. I cant believe that we are
all having the discussion around what a megabyte or multiple thereof is. PCs
smartphones and electronics have always been so _specific_ as to their tech
specs I dont understand who decided it would be a good idea to have a
conversion factor between megabyte and a "million" bytes. At the end of the
day, however, its just tech press and people with too much time on their hands
complaining about a small aspect of a device. Articles like this make me
grumpy...

------
jiggy2011
Is the disk in the surface interchangeable (without performing a surgical
procedure)? What about the MBA?

------
beagle3
This thread seems to be full of good advice about laptops, so maybe I can get
help on something slightly unrelated: Anyone have recommendation for a tablet
(or laptop that converts to tablet) that has outdoor readable screen? Not
direct sun, but sitting-in-the-car-on-a-sunny-day readable.

So far, HP EliteBook with its "outdoor readable screen" option (extra $100 and
2 week wait) is the best I've found, and it's not very good. Lenovo's outdoor
readable screen comes close, but is not as good.

I'm sure this is a solved problem - but I can't find a decent solution. Help,
anyone? Some special ipad case/screen sticker? Some screen technology I'm
unaware of?

~~~
mtgx
LCD's are still very reflective in sunlight. Only E-ink or PixelQi displays
are really good in sunlight, but you lose colors. There was the Notion Ink
Adam tablet. Not sure if they are still making new ones.

~~~
beagle3
Matte LCDs (like the outdoor HP and Lenovo screens) are much less reflective
than others, although they can't do direct sunlight.

eInk in all its variants (including PixelQi) is out of the question for my
use, as I need to display a live video feed as part of the application.

There's no technical problem to make sunlight readable LCDs - the technique
behind the 3M "privacy screens" would work perfectly for that. In fact, I
would have been able to use those privacy screens against sunlight, if they
weren't embedded in glossy film :(

The market apparently does not exist - the only sunlight readable LCDs one can
find come with super-hardened computers that can swim in water and withstand
falling from the 6th floor. They cost $3,000 or so, and have a Core 1 Duo, if
you are lucky.

------
el_cuadrado
I think the author is missing a point here: Macbook Air is a full-blown
computer (I run several VMs on mine), while Surface is a freaking tablet.

I am ok with 'wasted' space on a computer, because first, I expect OS to have
a substantial footprint, and second - I can see, touch, and actually 'consume'
the OS files.

I am not ok with wasted space on a tablet, because to me it is a glorified
book reader/mp3 player; I expect to use all the available space for storage.

Wait, you are saying Surface is actually a computer (although a shitty one),
not a tablet? Well, then MSFT completely failed to communicate this message.
Which is pretty regular problem for MSFT.

~~~
kooshball
> Macbook Air is a full-blown computer (I run several VMs on mine), while
> Surface is a freaking tablet.

You are wrong. The Surface Pro, which is what we're talking about here, is a
full-blown computer just like the MBA. It can run VMs as well. Or any other
software you can run on a windows laptop.

------
gabriel34
This is a bought arcticle if I ever saw one. Two wrongs don't make one right.

~~~
scholia
You're a jerk if ever I saw one.

------
JuDue
Everything comes back to Balmer's disdain for the iPad as being an overpriced
netbook device that nobody will ever use.

MS is furiously trying to merge tablets into fully fledged PCs.

I can almost guarantee that by Windows 9 they will have some success with
this, and hardware will get better and better.

But that's not to say the tablet space doesn't have enormous potential as
reduced and simplified user experiences.

Microsoft is betting a lot of its chips on pushing full Windows onto smaller
devices.

One key detail is that Office 365 seems to completely misjudge expectations of
tablet computing.

------
Uchikoma
Wow, such a long article, about essentially nothing.

About the 2 or 10 base, yes I think it's stupid (living 30yrs with the 2 base)
but thats the way it is. MS reports GiB and Apple report GB, so it's wrong to
claim both Apple and MS report their capacity in GB.

"The measurements are just expressed differently, in a way that makes Apple
look generous and Microsoft look stingy."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte>

------
bdcravens
Desktops and laptops have already reported drive capacity like this: total
capacity before OS + apps. Tablets and smart phones, as they've existed in the
marketplace since 2007, advertise available space. Most people think of the
Surface as the Windows version of an iPad, not a new form factor for a
traditional laptop. As such, they need to be marketed like their cohorts.

------
nakovet
Basically the article says: Microsoft lies to you, Apple lies to you and
basically everyone is lying to you when it comes to store in hard drives, pen
drives, SSD, etc.

At least our bandwidth limitations follow the base we are expecting too, can
you imagine you have 100 GB / monthly but for real is 9X something?

The industry is laughing on us.

------
bad_user
I've got a Thinkpad on which I replaced the hard-disk with a 128 GB SSD and
installed Ubuntu on it (using fulldisk encryption with dm-crypt / LUKS).

I've got about 100 GB of usable space after having installed a shit ton of
apps, libraries and utilities I needed, stuff like Emacs, OpenJDK (with
sources), IntelliJ IDEA, RVM with dozens of Java/Scala libraries downloaded
through Maven/SBT, dozens of ruby gems, dozens of Python libraries, MySQL,
RabbitMQ, Memcached, Gimp, Dropbox, GCC, many header/dev packages, some games
and the list can go on.

I should mention that I'm not using a Swap, because I've got enough RAM and as
long as I've got Suspend, I don't care about Hibernation.

But I'm talking about Ubuntu 12.10, which is probably the most bloated Linux
distribution I ever used. What the hell is in Windows or OS X that takes so
much space?

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Backwards compatibility.

My Windows 8 Pro is 19.2 GiB (on disk). Of which 9.67 GiB is WinSxS. Which is
essentially a giant component library containing dozens of different versions
of DLLs third party programs use.

1.67 GiB is the driver store. 1.36 GiB is the 32 bit sub-system (SysWoW64).
700 MiB is the .Net framework (versions 1 through 4). So now we're down to
5.94 GiB of "stuff" which we can call the "OS" if you'd like, without any
compatibility bits.

Linux is so tiny because Linux has a terrible backwards compatibility record.
Fortunately this is hard to spot because the distro's do such a great job of
hiding it (and automate much of that via their respective package managers).

But if Linux DID care about backwards compatibility at every level then the OS
would be huge too, since you'd need tons of old libraries built in, tons of
drivers for redundant hardware, and gunk like that.

------
justinhj
One differentiator is that Macs come with iLife suite that are a pretty
extensive and popular addition, whereas windows comes with office which is
easily replaced for most people with free and/or cloud offerings.

~~~
jeswin
I don't use a Mac or Windows. But I suspect that in the real world, Office is
way more "extensive and popular" than iLife.

~~~
justinhj
Well most of the people I know in the real world that are casual home computer
users get a lot more use out of apps like iPhoto and iMovie than word.
Especially because most of them just use Google docs for writing letters.

------
forgotAgain
Love the first graphic and how it twists itself to show the recovery partition
on the right side of the graph so the green bar can be as far left as
possible. The article lost all credibility at that point.

~~~
ygra
The recovery partition is likely at the end of the drive, which means it can
easily be deleted and the other partition appropriately extended.

~~~
forgotAgain
Possibly, but I think the more likely explanation is that they are obfuscating
the fact that the green bar for the Mac 128 is significantly longer than the
bar for the Surface 128.

------
stephengillie
This is stupid. This is like asking which car cabin has the most air volume,
and finding that Toyota's larger seats mean its cabin can't hold as much air
as Honda's.

------
merinid
who cares about storage space when you can keep everything in the cloud. my
computer is as commodity as my jeans, friends. Access over dependence.

~~~
rjempson
your friends are a commodity. now that's really nice :-)

~~~
merinid
No no, my jeans are the commodity. Friends is just who i was addressing that
sentence too. Read into the comma. Lol.

------
someotheruser
TL;DR: Both. Pointing your finger at someone doing something worse doesn't
make what you're doing right.

------
ryguytilidie
Why is this being compared to the macbook air and not the ipad?

~~~
silix
Because the Surface PRO runs full desktop Photoshop, Visual Studio, Office,
Hyper-v and Skrim.

You can also plug in a full USB keyboard and mouse (the OS supports a
pointer), use a digitizer pen or an XBox controller.

------
cooldeal
The Ars review of the Surface Pro has more details on disk space:

Unlike Office in Windows RT, this Office is fully uninstallable if you don't
like it. Doing so will liberate about 2.3 GB of disk space. Even if you keep
Office, you'll have more disk space than Microsoft claims.

How much? The 128 GB Surface Pro has a formatted capacity of 119 (binary) GB
and change. A total of 8.4 GB is used for recovery data, of which 7.8 GB can
be reclaimed if you prefer to keep your recovery image on external media. This
leaves 110.5 GB for the main partition. On a brand new Surface Pro, about 89
(binary) GB are available. Occupying that 20 GB are 3.3 GB of hibernation
file, 4 GB of pagefile, 2.3 GB of Office 2013, 10.4 GB of Windows, built-
in/default apps, and so on and so forth.

Presuming the sizes of the applications remain comparable on the 64 GB model
(with its 59 binary, GB formatted capacity) one would expect to see about 29
GB available by default. Take off Office and the recovery partition and there
will be close to 40 GB available.

~~~
stcredzero

           7.8 GB recoverable recovery 
           3.3 GM hibernation file
           4.0 GB pagefile
           2.3 GB Office
          10.4 GB Windows + other default apps
        ---------
          27.8 GB
    

Which seems to indicate that you can recover 27.8 - 10.4 GB, or 17.4 GB. I'd
like to see a chart like that for the Air.

The comparison in the article is with the Macbook Air, which is a laptop, not
a laptop/tablet hybrid. I think this is instructive, however. My understanding
is that there is no hibernation file and pagefile on an iPad. It's not trying
to be a laptop. Likewise, there is no recovery partition on the iPad. (And I
see very little need of one.)

The Surface Pro is a laptop in a tablet format. It's basically an old stylus
tablet PC from the early 2000's done with 2012 technology, capacitative touch,
and some design ideas from iPad style tablets layered on top.

Like my old tc1100 stylus tablet PC, you can use it for the same use cases as
an iPad. However, there are important differences:

Holding it in bed would be a bit of a stunt. I can do it with my tc1100 if I
rest my elbow on the bed and balance the thing along its diagonal through the
center of gravity, with the corner resting firmly in my palm, whereas holding
the iPad is like holding a book: something I don't have to think too much
about. (That said, the iPad is already at the upper limit of what's tenable
for me to not notice weight wise.)

Like the old tc1100, I have to be mindful of vents. A total non-issue with the
iPad. I don't know what term there would be for this quality, but it's like a
magic slab of touchable light. Having to think about vents ruins that.

Like the old tc1100, I would have to be mindful of battery _per work session_.
To give credit where credit is due, the battery on the Surface Pro lasts 2X as
long. However, I can put the tc1100 to sleep and hot-swap battery, so one
extra battery gives me as much work endurance.

Basically, they're missing three of the essential qualities that make the iPad
great as a tablet. I think they would've done better to go whole hog on the
tablet/laptop hybrid idea like the IdeaPad Yoga and the Inspiron Duo. By
pretending to be a tablet, they're setting up a bunch of expectations that
aren't gong to be met. The tablet/hybrid is good enough for occasionally
folding up as a tablet and passing around at a meeting, and doesn't seem to
carry expectations beyond that.

Also, what benefit is there to be had from a tablet/laptop hybrid that I
couldn't get from an "ultrabook" laptop with an 8.9" tablet? Instead of one
device that's mediocre as a tablet and a laptop, I could have two devices that
are great in each situation, for little additional weight. (For one thing, I
could use the hybrid with a Wacom digitizer to do double duty as a poor-man's
Cintiq, but that's kind of niche.)

~~~
Indyan
You can't just chop off the page file. Disabling it entirely or reducing it
significantly can and will affect system performance.

~~~
lucian1900
That shouldn't be the case. So many linux machines are doing fine with swap
disabled.

Regardless, there's no reason for hibernation and page file to be different.
They can (and should) be the same file.

~~~
ygra
Oh? So where do you put swapped-out pages when you go into hibernation? Or
would you first need to defragment your page file contents just to dump RAM
contents into it? Or keep a map what pages in the pagefile are swapped out and
what are just hibernated RAM and then piece stuff together on wake-up again?

~~~
richardwhiuk
You simply swap out all your memory. There's no technical difference between a
hibernated page and a swapped out page - the only difference is that the OS
normally prevents certain pages (e.g. kernel pages) from being swapped out to
preserve performance.

------
drivebyacct2
I'm so embarrassed. A week ago I defended that people could be reasonable
about Microsoft, their products and the Surface. The comment threads here
today have been pathetic. If this is the biggest issue to bitch about
regarding the Surface then the Surface Pro 2.0 should be an easy target to
nail.

Jesus there are people writing rants in this thread that don't even understand
that the Surface Pro is specd similarly to the macbook air (except the surface
has a much better screen)

------
jedmeyers
I am curious if the author checked out what's that thing called GiB is before
he started ranting about Microsoft vs. Apple disk size discrepancies?

~~~
kitsune_
The guy isn't ranting. The article is matter-of-fact in tone. The
mebi-/gibi-/...-byte (metric) definition was standardized rather late (late
90's). By that time the general public was already accustomed to the (now
wrong) binary interpretation of a MB or GB.

Also of note: The GB was actually once defined by the IEEE as 1024^3 bytes.

~~~
mbreese
The entire thing read like a rant to me... I don't read him all that often
though, so I don't know if that is his normal style.

~~~
scholia
"Rant" means "to speak or declaim extravagantly or violently; talk in a wild
or vehement way; rave" <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rant>

So either you don't know what a rant is, or you don't understand English very
well.

