Fanbois are the plague

That's right, I forgot about the storage slot.  I thought there was some restrictions on how it's used for storage (i.e. it can't hold apps), but I've yet to use it.

@Dr Herbie:I just checked my monthly download for November and I came in just over 40GB, with very little in the way of streaming.  I do some offsite backup and watch a few TV shows, but nowhere near the amount that would occur with children in the equation.

Is this a limitation of Dr. Herbie's neighborhood or a UK norm?

@ScanIAm: The speed is limited by our area (rural areas still generally have substandard internet speeds in the UK), while the 40Gb limit is ISP specific based on the tariff we're signed up to. We're trying to balance usage and costs and so aren't paying out for the unlimited package.

Herbie

Maybe Microsoft could help out by removing the 7-10GB of x86 and x64 binaries in SysWOW64 and System32 that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever on an RT device except to take up space.

@Craig_Matthews: Also, Surface is still advertised as having a Preview of Office 2013, so perhaps they could work to slim it down for the actual release?

Herbie

Maybe it takes up a couple of GB for recovery partition?

7 minutes ago, Craig_​Matthews wrote

Maybe Microsoft could help out by removing the 7-10GB of x86 and x64 binaries in SysWOW64 and System32 that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever on an RT device except to take up space.

Are you sure they do that? I'm pretty sure they don't have a SysWow64 directory and all of the dlls in System32 are ARM binaries on the RT.

@Maddus Mattus:

it does, about 5 GB. Maybe they should have recovery similar to win phone instead of storing everything, except I don't know how to deal the piracy.

58 minutes ago, evildictait​or wrote

*snip*

Are you sure they do that? I'm pretty sure they don't have a SysWow64 directory and all of the dlls in System32 are ARM binaries on the RT.

I don't think SysWow64 exists even in Windows 8 Pro 32-bit.

4 hours ago, Dr Herbie wrote

@Craig_Matthews: Also, Surface is still advertised as having a Preview of Office 2013, so perhaps they could work to slim it down for the actual release?

Herbie

The final version has been released but is still an optional update. I didn't check the size of things but I imagine it's a bit smaller, assuming the preview had some debug code left in.

13 hours ago, Dr Herbie wrote

And this logic doesn't apply to other tablets?  How much free space do other tablets have (I don't have one, so I don't know)?  iPad, Fire, Galaxy Tab?

Herbie

IOS6 weighs in at about 1.5GB; I imagine Android is about the same.

I just installed the RTM of Office 2013 Pro and with most everything installed it was under 3GB. That leaves the OS (w/recovery, etc.) taking up around 13GB by my count. Round it down to 10GB and that's still a lot compared to the competition. No doubt RT provides Office where the others don't but to loose more than 10 times the storage as the nearest competitor just for "Windows" with Office IMO is going to be hard for most consumer to accept. With the Office web edition and Office mobile for iOS and Android coming next year it's going to make that space issue even more of a glaring problem.

That said the amount of memory free on a device is just one factor of many that buyers consider. There are other things such as availability of applications, reuse of existing peripherals, and performance that are probably more important.

@DeathByVisualStudio:

would be great to simply put the office in store for free. Then, it is not required.

and put recovery online like WinPhone.

this probably would save so much GBs.

18 hours ago, Bas wrote

*snip*

But then, how comparable is comparable when other tablets don't include full-blown office suites? It sounds like a legal nightmare. Should be entertaining, though.

This why advertising regulations exist, because we don't want judges winging it on things like this (libertarian's dilemma: more regulations vs. judicial activism)