

Lawyer sues Microsoft over Surface tablet storage  - boh
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019680330_apusmicrosoftsurfacelawsuit.html

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roc
> _"Customers understand the operating system and pre-installed applications
> reside on the device's internal storage thereby reducing the total free
> space,"_

I think there's a reasonable disagreement to be had over whether the Surface
uses an _unexpected_ quantity of internal storage. Even knowledgeable
technical people are fairly uniformly shocked at just _how much_ space the
Surface OS and bundled apps occupies.

I'm not sure whether that translates into a good chance for this guy to win.
But I can't say that I'm on board with laughing off or derisively dismissing
such a complaint.

~~~
jrajav
I don't think this is an entirely trivial case, either. If the Surface is
meant to compete more directly in the mobile space alongside iOS and Android
devices, an argument could be made that it should be advertising something
close to _user-available_ storage capacity like those are understood to.

~~~
reddit_clone
Indeed. OS and crapware taking a few GB's off a 2 TB hard disk is one thing.
Taking 16 GB's off of advertised 32 GB flash storage is outrageous.

This is false advertising. I wouldn't laugh at this lawyer if I were
Microsoft.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
@at-fates-hands:

 _"You say it has 16GB and then once you turn it on and it says 32GB in the
system screen, now people are pissed your OS and apps take up too much room."_

That simply does not happen. The inverse, in which people expect to be able to
store plenty of media and apps but can't, does. Most users won't even know
that it's the OS that's taking up that much space, but they'll know to blame
Microsoft.

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crazygringo
What I haven't seen anyone mention is the fact that it's NOT expectations that
come from mobile/tablet (we're used to most of the space being available,
because OS is usually tiny, but Windows 8 is not) vs expectations that come
from the desktop (where we're used to the OS taking up 10+ GB).

It's simply a question of percentages. An iOS installation uses anywhere from
1.5% to 6% of available space (1 GB out of 16 to 64). A desktop OS might take
up 16GB, but your HD is anywhere from 256-2,048 GB, so still in the range of
1-6%.

So, when consumers everywhere are pretty much used to all smartphones and
computers both leaving more than 90% of advertised space still available for
use, when Microsoft's Surface comes along and leaves only 50%, it really is
qualitatively different, and you really have to give weight to the idea that
this is deceptive and misleading to customers.

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pdonis
Translation: _Lawyer_ fails to read fine print, then is naive enough to
publicly admit same.

~~~
trhtrsh
Or, Lawyer did read the fine print, then is savvy enough to sue and publicly
drum up clients.

~~~
pdonis
But don't you have to actually win the lawsuit for this strategy to work?

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atonse
Whatever happened to just returning the device? Seems like a much simpler
solution. If enough people return the device if it doesn't fit their needs,
then companies will get the message.

~~~
rbanffy
> Whatever happened to just returning the device?

That wouldn't protect future customers who fall for this false advertisement
and never realized they paid for 32 GB of storage but got only 16... False
advertising is serious. We HN'ers can see if a device we bought has half the
storage we expected it to have, but most people can't.

~~~
pdonis
The appropriate "protection" for future customers is to publicly ridicule
Microsoft for their bad marketing, and for those potential future customers to
not become actual customers by not buying the device. It is _not_ a lawsuit.

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TallGuyShort
"They make you search and dig for it specifically"

Although I also hate it when companies bury details, but I don't agree with
this lawsuit. If hard-drive space is an important consideration for you, you
should do a little more homework than this guy obviously did. I could see a
case being made for him returning his Surface and getting a refund, but I
don't see a case being made that Microsoft should have overtly printed,
"WARNING: Our device only leaves you with 16 GB of usable space. Additional SD
card not included."

------
phpnode
I really don't understand this, if you're not happy with a device you buy,
return it for a full refund and don't buy another. How is it even possible to
sue over an issue like this?

~~~
halostatue
False advertising.

Most jurisdictions have laws against it. Microsoft may believe that it has an
out with respect to their "fine print", but that also can only go so far,
since they _actively_ advertise a 32GB Surface as having 32GB storage
(implying that it's user-available, because all of the Surface's competitors
explicitly state user-available storage). None of my iPhones, my iPads, nor my
Nexus 7 have provided _half_ the advertised storage the way that the 32GB
Surface does.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think that Microsoft is going to be changing some
labelling so that we see user-available storage clearly. It'll work better for
Microsoft in the end, too.

From a technical perspective, I can't believe that Microsoft couldn't figure
out a way to make this work without exposing this to users.

------
IanDrake
I can solve his problem for $21.64 on Amazon: <http://amzn.to/XhLWTY>

This guys is a fool. Let's be glad his target is MS and not some startup that
didn't live up to his "expectations".

~~~
grecy
I imagine you'd also be happy to buy a car advertised as "seats 5", then you
have to spend more money to buy a 5th seat?

EDIT: Let me update my analogy a little - let's say the car is advertised as
"seats 5", and when you get it, you can only put a small child in the 5th seat
(1/2 a person). To seat a 5th adult, you have to buy an extra seat.

Still happy?

~~~
mmanfrin
Have you bought any electronic with storage at _all_ in the past 10 years? Not
even hard drives come with the advertised storage -- they've had to repurpose
what 'GB' means (base-10 instead of base-2).

~~~
fruchtose
That's not false advertising. The drives are measured in SI bytes, which is a
decimal system.

~~~
mmanfrin
Did you read my comment?

~~~
fruchtose
Yes. Hard drives do in fact come with the advertised storage. Manufacturers
rate hard drives in using SI prefixes. Operating systems measure hard drives
in binary bytes. It's not false advertising if the measurement system is
valid.

------
driverdan
Do the Surface package and main website homepage tell you exactly how much
usable memory it includes?

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makethetick
Anyone know how much he's suing for?

~~~
adamman
Something tells me it's more than 16 more gigs.

