Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 operating system has failed to gain traction as the company’s continued attempts at a revival haven’t reaped fruits. The company’s aspirations in the tablet market too were heavily stunted when the Surface RT failed to impress the market (mainly because of Microsoft’s insane marketing strategy). However, all of that was supposed to be changed with the launch of the Surface Pro tomorrow (Feb 9) which is supposed to give users a much more complete experience compared to the Surface RT. But even the Surface Pro wasn’t spared from criticism as it was said to have substantially lesser storage than what Microsoft had us believe. The 128GB Surface Pro apparently came with storage of only 89.7GB, which is appalling really when we consider how much the customer is paying for the tablet.

But a neat little comparison by ZDNet’s Ed Bott reveals that not all is bad for the Surface Pro. He did a little comparison of the storage between the 128GB Surface Pro and the 128GB Apple MacBook Air and the results were astonishing to say the least. The part of the reason why the Surface Pro only comes with 89.7GB of storage is because of the recovery partition tools built into the system which eats up a good amount of space. Remove that and the tablet/notebook actually comes with more storage than the 128GB MacBook Air.

The MacBook Air 128GB comes with 92.2GB of storage, while the Microsoft Surface Pro packs 89.7GB of storage with the recovery partition. However, removing the recovery partition gives the Surface Pro over 97 gigs of storage, which is good enough for a notebook or a tablet of its caliber. The MacBook Air doesn’t come with recovery tools and hence comes with more storage out of the box. This should be a sigh of relief for potential buyers and Microsoft as it cannot afford to fail with the Surface Pro too. Many other issues are yet to be sorted out and we’ll know more once the device actually arrives in the stores and people begin discovering the shortcomings of the tablet with each growing day.

The Surface Pro will retail for $ 899 and $ 999 for the 64 and 128GB variants respectively. If you think the storage is a deal breaker, then you can be assured of the fact that it packs a microSD slot as well as a full USB port among other options to expand the storage. It’s basically like a full fledged notebook, but only better and with touch input. Bear in mind, the touch or type cover is to be sold separately and is not included in the aforementioned price. So whether the Surface Pro is a wise choice for over $ 1,000 is a decision the users will have to make ultimately. As of now though, it seems like waiting a few weeks is the wise thing to do. Sound off in the comments section below if you think the Microsoft Surface Pro is worth your money.

Source: ZDNet
Via: WP Central

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