Advertised Storage not available storage

Cyber Ghost

When is this gonna stop?

Got a mobile lately with supposedly "4GB" internal storage available. Just over 1GB actually available!

Tablet with 8Gb internal - Actually 4.8!

This has been going on for ages - Got a Xbox 360 years ago with a 20Gb harddrive. Only 11GB available.

I know the operating system takes up space but as it's completely not usable companies shouldn't be able to advertise like this.

Government needs to step in make legislation to stop this annoyance!

D3PO

they don't advertise available storage they advertise quite correctly the total capacity of the storage. Theres no issue here.

I don't know why its an annoyance you know that the available will be less than the total.

Cyber Ghost

D3PO wrote: »

they don't advertise available storage they advertise quite correctly the total capacity of the storage. Theres no issue here.

I don't know why its an annoyance you know that the available will be less than the total.

That's a load of rubbish.

How am I supposed to know that the phone has 1GB storage actually available for apps? Where does the manufacture state this?

Stoarge for apps is one of the most important parts of the phone and they don't tell you how much.
It's ridic.

D3PO

they don't tell you how much but they equally don't tell you the wrong amount.

they advertise the same way globally and its understood and considered industry standard that they advise on the size of the storage and not the available size.

Cyber Ghost

As i say, they need to introduce legislation to change this.

D3PO

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

As i say, they need to introduce legislation to change this.

why ?

do you really think for one second that this is in anyway worth of wasting political time on.

Tell ya what why don't you take a case to the supreme court and force a change be made so if you feel that strongly about it.

Whilst your at it why not complain that a GB is being advertised globally as industry standard as 1000 mb instead of 1024 :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Paulw

Now, they should also change the law when it comes to every single device that comes with storage.

When you buy a hard disk, it says the capacity is eg 4TB, but when you plug it in to your PC, you never get all that space.
When you buy a NAS, you never get the capacity it can possibly hold.
A digital camera that has space never holds the number of photos it says it can.

We're being defrauded of space. :eek:

Again when business say 1GB = 1000 MB it is wrong. It should be 1024 MB.

Same with phones, tablets, etc ... the world is gone mad ..... :eek:

NOTE : the post is full of sarcasm. :rolleyes:

Cabaal

There is no issue here,

The Operating system and apps have to be stored somewhere,

If they gave you a empty drive/memory card and told you install the operating system yourself you'd claim company's weren't thinking of the customer...this of course would be true because most people don't know their arse from their elbow when it comes to installing a devices operating system or upgrading or installing firmware.

Tippex

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

As i say, they need to introduce legislation to change this.

in fairness I think there are a lot more pressing things that governments need to bring out legislation for (this is a first world problem and not much of an issue at that)

seamus

For anyone who's interested, there's an actual reason why these things don't match.

It's the difference between raw capacity and bytewise capacity. Manufacturers have always stated the capacity in raw numbers.

So 8 bits = 1 byte. 1,000,0000 bytes = 1 Megabyte = 8,000,000 bits.

Then the pesky computer scientists came along and made their own definition of what 1 Megabyte was. For mathematical reasons that we don't need to go into here, they defined 1 Megabyte as 1,024 Kbytes = 8,388,608 bits.

And so, whenever a manufacturer stated that a drive's capacity was 1 Megabyte, they meant 8,000,000 bits. But everyone assumed they meant 8,388,608 bits. So people felt they were getting stiffed for those bits. Which is nearly 2.5% of the entire capacity. Nothing to be sniffed at back in the old days.

Of course, this has gone on for years. Who is right? The manufacturers are. Kilo/Mega/Giga are all iso decimal units of increasing factors of 1,000. Using it to refers to increasing factors of 1,024 is just plain incorrect. Instead the correct notation for these is KiBi/MeBi/GiBi.

Despite these being the internationally accepted standard terms, it still hasn't caught on with software producers, who will still incorrectly use Kilobyte to refer to 1,024 bytes.

So when your hard drive appears to be much smaller than advertised, it's not the manufacturer's fault, it's Microsoft's fault for not correctly reporting the size of the drive.

D3PO

that's actually not the reason why. Although what your describing has already been touched on twice in that post already that's a separate issue.

this post is about capacity advertising versus available space relating to OS, firmwares, preinstalled apps etc taking up a certain amount of said space.

UCDVet

A lot of people are quick to point out that when they say 4gb they don't mean 4gb...and since everyone knows this, it's okay? I'm not sure I understand or agree with this at all.

The fact is, a consumer reasonably has *no idea* how much space is available on the device. And before you say, 'Well, it is your device, you can format the hard-drive or blah, blah, blah'....that used to be true with traditional computers. But in today's world of cellphones and tablets, in many cases you can't. In lots of cases, doing so voids your warranty and lots of times there are no reasonable alternatives.

Device manufactures pre-load devices with crapware they are paid to provide and users are forced to deal with it. Removing them, in many cases, means voiding the warranty and requires a technical skill far beyond what can be expected from a user. I can root my cell phone and remove crap I don't want - but only because of the expertise of people who figured it out, provided software and instructions....and even then, it carries a huge risk.

The amount of usable space can't be determined, the amount of space required for 'system' operations isn't specified and the amount of space that can be cleared isn't specified.

I get the whole 1000 verse 1024, base 10/base 2 stuff....and yes, it's deceptive and confusing. There are computer science majors that can't concisely explain the difference....but I feel like that doesn't approach the meaninglessness of the 'Xgb storage' problem.

Again, historically, with traditional computers the OS was always an insignificant amount of space for most users *and* they had the option of installing something else - at least in the non-commercial side of things. Maybe it was different if you bought a mainframe...but now we're talking about devices where stuff you can't remove is 50-80% of the total space.

one shot bang bang

i got a nokia lumia 625 8GB few days a go,it only had 5.7GB when i checked it on my pc.the rest of the memory is used for the phones software.

rubadub

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

This has been going on for ages

UCDVet wrote: »

A lot of people are quick to point out that when they say 4gb they don't mean 4gb...and since everyone knows this, it's okay?.

The OP has seen it in the past so I'm wondering why they simply don't just look up about devices before buying them.

e.g. google for the post above

how much usable space on a nokia lumia 625 8GB

2nd hit without even clicking on it

the 625 is less impressive, coming with just 8GB, only 5GB of which is usable

RossieMan

most specs sheets actually state the usable space, or so i've found when buying anything.

I thought it was pretty much common sense too.

SD cards are insanely cheap nowadays anyway.

gctest50

one shot bang bang wrote: »

i got a nokia lumia 625 8GB few days a go,it only had 5.7GB when i checked it on my pc.the rest of the memory is used for the phones software.

All the "shiny" stuff takes a lot of space ?

- it'll take a grand size of memory card though :

Maximum memory card size: 64 GB

http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/lumia520/specifications/

rubadub

gctest50 wrote: »

- it'll take a grand size of memory card though :

Often they can take more, same with some motherboards & ram. They test them with the highest ones at the time but later they often can cope with more, so again check reviews, it can depend on brands too.

I had a nokia with a 2GB card years ago, when the max was stated as 516mb

gctest50

Its just starting to get some bit good - not really all that long ago when they

produced scrap like this and were proud of the progress :

Cyber Ghost

RossieMan wrote: »

SD cards are insanely cheap nowadays anyway.

Nexus anyone? Moto G?

Plus on Samsung devices you usually can't install apps on sd card, just photos and you're hardly going to keep GBs of photos on your phone with USB cables, dropbox, facebook auto upload and whatnot.

It's retarded to think the "man on the street" sees a phone with 4GB internal storage advertised and when he gets home he sees he has only 1GB available for apps.

aN.Droid

Non issue.

Phone has the advertised space. The phone isnt advertised as having the space available for apps but that the space is there. Which it is.

As seamus points out aswell there will be discrepancies between advertised space and available space in the end of the day anyway because people much smarter than us used maths to break outside the standard notation of units (1x10^3 = etc.) and instead are exponentials of 2 (2^10 being 1024)

If you want to get deeper into it you will have to study binary arithmetic.

Nino Brown

seamus wrote: »

For anyone who's interested, there's an actual reason why these things don't match.

It's the difference between raw capacity and bytewise capacity. Manufacturers have always stated the capacity in raw numbers.

So 8 bits = 1 byte. 1,000 bytes = 1 Megabyte = 8,000 bits.

Then the pesky computer scientists came along and made their own definition of what 1 Megabyte was. For mathematical reasons that we don't need to go into here, they defined 1 Megabyte as 1,024 bytes = 8,192 bits.

And so, whenever a manufacturer stated that a drive's capacity was 1 Megabyte, they meant 8,000 bits. But everyone assumed they meant 8,192 bits. So people felt they were getting stiffed for those bits. Which is nearly 2.5% of the entire capacity. Nothing to be sniffed at back in the old days.

Of course, this has gone on for years. Who is right? The manufacturers are. Kilo/Mega/Giga are all iso decimal units of increasing factors of 1,000. Using it to refers to increasing factors of 1,024 is just plain incorrect. Instead the correct notation for these is KiBi/MeBi/GiBi.

Despite these being the internationally accepted standard terms, it still hasn't caught on with software producers, who will still incorrectly use Kilobyte to refer to 1,024 bytes.

So when your hard drive appears to be much smaller than advertised, it's not the manufacturer's fault, it's Microsoft's fault for not correctly reporting the size of the drive.

If 1Mb is only 8,000 bits, I'm with the OP, we need to sue! I can live with a few GB for the OS, but orders of magnitude less than advertised would piss me off.

Cyber Ghost

This has ZERO to do with how many bytes are in a bit and whatnot.

It's to do with the HUGE variation between advertised space and what you end up getting.

For example I bought two 4GB phones lately and one has 1GB (75% less than advertised) available for apps and the other 2GB.

How am I supposed to know this until I take it home and turn it on?

Does the law state that "ah shur you could have checked it online before you bought it" - me hole.

This is a joke of an issue imo and the companies get away with blue murder.
This could easily fall into false advertising and I don't know how they can get away with it.

Paulw

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

This is a joke of an issue imo and the companies get away with blue murder.
This could easily fall into false advertising and I don't know how they can get away with it.

Yes, it is a joke of an issue, so time to move on.

False advertising? No, they advertise that the device has X amount of space, not X amount of free space. Hence, no false advertising. :rolleyes:

drunkmonkey

In fairness to OP he's correct, it is false advertising. The Samsung S4 has to be one of this years worst offenders. Advertised as 16GB but only has 8.49GB of usable storage. Samsung got a lot of flack for it and rightly so.
When your dealing with techies they know it's not going to have 16GB storage but when your advertising to consumers it should state usable space.

Cabaal

drunkmonkey wrote: »

In fairness to OP he's correct, it is false advertising. The Samsung S4 has to be one of this years worst offenders. Advertised as 16GB but only has 8.49GB of usable storage. Samsung got a lot of flack for it and rightly so.
When your dealing with techies they know it's not going to have 16GB storage but when your advertising to consumers it should state usable space.

Except they are not correct,

If the OP can find an advert that states "8GB free space available" ands then takes the item home and finds thats not the case then they have a case, but thats not how they are advertised.

HD capacity has always included the operating system, if you bought a Windows 95 machine back in the early 90's with a 500MB hard drive you instantly lost space to the Windows operating system (in the region of 60MB-80mb so thats alot out of a 500MB drive),

Fast forward to now and if you buy a Windows, iOS, Mac OS, Android device now you instantly loose space to the operating system,

Nothing has changed, except storage is far far cheaper these days and customer's have loads of free or very cheap options for storing their media....dropbox, sd cards etc etc.

rubadub

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

How am I supposed to know this until I take it home and turn it on?

Does the law state that "ah shur you could have checked it online before you bought it" - me hole..

No need for a law, simple common sense should have told you to research it online. Especially in your case where you are fully aware that you always get less. Its not like your some auld granny conned by a salesman the first time buying such a device. In your first post you stated 2 devices which had just over half the stated capacity as usable, so its no surprise to you.

RossieMan

If only there was some sort of site where you type in what you want to know and it gives you the answer.

Cyber Ghost

Cabaal wrote: »

HD capacity has always included the operating system, if you bought a Windows 95 machine back in the early 90's with a 500MB hard drive you instantly lost space to the Windows operating system (in the region of 60MB-80mb so thats a lot out of a 500MB drive),

That's less than 15% of the space advertised.

I keep repeating but I ended up with 1Gb from 4GB which is a whopping SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT less than advertised.

This is a stupid example but say some "man on the street" who isn't very tech savvy decided to buy a Android smartphone as there's a particular app he's interested in and which he knows is a large 1.5GB. He notices the Huawei y300 (the one I bought) is being advertised with 4GB internal storage so he goes "Ah shur, that'll be plenty, like" - he takes it home and tried to install the app and finds there's only 1GB storage available!

The guy musn't have a clue what's going on! He must think his phone is broken or some****.

It's blatant misleading advertising and this has to be remedied

Cyber Ghost

RossieMan wrote: »

If only there was some sort of site where you type in what you want to know and it gives you the answer.

Everybody who buys phones uses the internet regularly do they?

aN.Droid

Op for the last time the phone is as advertised.

It has the space, just not the space available for apps.

You have been given multiple reasons for the shortfall of space and thats just the way it is. It is an industry standard. that word again is standard.

If you are going to be making a technical purchase such as a smart phone then yes you should 100% be expected to do some research on it beforehand. They are sophisticated pieces of equipment and have come a long way since the nokia 3210 one size fits all.

Also nowadays with cloud storage most stuff isn't even stored on the phone anyway. My music is all cloud streamed, my pictures the same.

I would love to know what app uses 1.5gigs by the way.

kippy

When you buy a PC or Laptop do you expect the advertised harddrive size to be the entirety of what is available to you?
This non issue is prevalent right across the board with anything that has internal storage. The manufacturers are doing nothing wrong as what they advertise is correct.
Ultimately if you are that interested in the detail of what is available do some research beforehand. Researching your purchases in general is a good thing anyway.

Paulw

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

I keep repeating but I ended up with 1Gb from 4GB which is a whopping SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT less than advertised.

Can you please link to where it quotes the available space, rather than total space? It is NOT less than advertised. It is exactly as advertised. The device has a 4GB capacity, and you happen to have 1GB available to you.

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

This is a stupid example but say some "man on the street" who isn't very tech savvy decided to buy a Android smartphone as there's a particular app he's interested in and which he knows is a large 1.5GB.

If the man on the street isn't tech savy then he won't have a clue how much space 1GB is, or 4GB is. So, as far as he is concerned - he buys a phone and has space to install some apps. I bet the "man on the street" would have no clue as to the size of an app he is installing, never mind how much space he really wants. :rolleyes:

It is the somewhat more tech savy like you who have the issue and continue to rant when you already know what you're getting.

Maybe it's time to move on and do some research before you buy.

keithclancy

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

That's less than 15% of the space advertised.

I keep repeating but I ended up with 1Gb from 4GB which is a whopping SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT less than advertised.

This is a stupid example but say some "man on the street" who isn't very tech savvy decided to buy a Android smartphone as there's a particular app he's interested in and which he knows is a large 1.5GB. He notices the Huawei y300 (the one I bought) is being advertised with 4GB internal storage so he goes "Ah shur, that'll be plenty, like" - he takes it home and tried to install the app and finds there's only 1GB storage available!

The guy musn't have a clue what's going on! He must think his phone is broken or some****.

It's blatant misleading advertising and this has to be remedied

Advertising the available space would be misleading since when the O/S is updated or new features are added this increases the amount of space used.

Also the O/S is made by a third party.

TerrorFirmer

I think using the 1024mb v 1GB argument is a little off here, I think most people understand that and do not expect every last drop of storage on their phone, laptop, or whatever medium, but advertising something as 4gb storage of which only 25% of that is accessible to the user is pretty bad in my opinion. That's a whole different kettle of fish to the typical hard drive argument. Imagine you bought a 1TB laptop in PC World and only 250GB was accessible?

Nino Brown

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I think using the 1024mb v 1GB argument is a little off here, I think most people understand that and do not expect every last drop of storage on their phone, laptop, or whatever medium, but advertising something as 4gb storage of which only 25% of that is accessible to the user is pretty bad in my opinion. That's a whole different kettle of fish to the typical hard drive argument. Imagine you bought a 1TB laptop in PC World and only 250GB was accessible?

Surely it's understood in this day and age that operating systems take several GB's on a phone and more on a laptop. If you buy a cheap device with less memory, a larger percentage will be used for the OS. You're never going to have a 750GB operating system, so if you pay for the extra memory, then you get more available memory. Like everything else, you get what you pay for.

Cyber Ghost

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I think using the 1024mb v 1GB argument is a little off here, I think most people understand that and do not expect every last drop of storage on their phone, laptop, or whatever medium, but advertising something as 4gb storage of which only 25% of that is accessible to the user is pretty bad in my opinion. That's a whole different kettle of fish to the typical hard drive argument. Imagine you bought a 1TB laptop in PC World and only 250GB was accessible?

Finally, someone who gets my point.

RossieMan

is there any point arguing with you? you don't seem to get common sense on the matter.

do you understand that OS takes up a large majority of the available space? They are marketed as having 4gb of space because they do infact, gave 4gb of space.

I don't get whats so hard to understand. even if you're not technological, that still has to make sense.

you're not making any point with this thread, it's just your own ignorance on the matter i'm seeing.

UCDVet

If it were a car that was advertised as 'seats 6' but only had room for four people because of the engine and trunk....I'm sure there are people would say, 'Well - it didn't say seating for six is available - just that it has it. And it does - if you take out the engine and the boot!'.

I agree that it is standard practice, but we routinely pass laws to protect consumers as the industry is happy to make standard practices that screw over customers. In most of these cases the company selling the device does not make the information available, you can't see the size of the OS. You also can't see the size of additional 'stuff' they include (that often can't be removed).

I agree with the OP. It's shady at best. I'm fine with them saying '4gb' so long as they also disclose how much is available. If I buy a phone that says '4gb (.8 available)' or something; then hey, I can make an informed decision. I don't see any reason to be against having this information disclosed.

UCDVet

As a more concrete example - I want to buy a Tablet for my wife. I believe teh Asus Transformer (T100) is the device I want to get.

Here is the item:
http://www.pcworld.ie/Product/ASUS-Transformer-Book-T100-Touchscreen-2-in-1/316797/2.9

There are two models - the 32gb and the 64gb. Unfortunately the 64gb model is not available in Ireland. Reviews of the device overwhelmingly say to get the 64gb model (most of the reviews are done where there is only a small jump in price - so why not?).

But that's not available in any shop I can get to.

So what do I do? Is the 32gb enough space for my needs? Well, I don't know. And short of purchasing one, I can't find out.

I'm searching online because I REALLY do want to know. Will 15gb be free or 5gb? Or 1gb? If it's 15gb - I'd buy it - no question. 5gb - I wouldn't.

What does PC World say on the topic?

Storage is provided by 32 GB of eMMC storage and is enough for apps, music, photos and files.

It is enough for apps, music, photos and files. Well....that means NOTHING. 10mb would be enough storage for two apps, a 2 second mp3, 2 pictures and 2 text files. Heck - you could do that in 2mb.

If you call a shop and ask, they'll think you are crazy and they won't know. They'll tell you what it says on the box '32 gb'. Okay - but that doesn't help me. And if I buy it in a shop - well, then this becomes a far more serious legal issue.

I don't have a right to return something because I get it home and don't like it. So long as it does what it is supposed to.

The law only entitles you to return an item if it is broken or not as described. You are not legally entitled to return something if you don't like it or it doesn't fit

http://www.rte.ie/tv/theafternoonshow/2009/0107/tinaleonard681.html

I don't know if the device will work for me because enough information isn't disclosed. I can't get any official source of the information. And if I buy it, I have no legal right to return it because there is not enough available free space.

I work with computers as a software developer. I don't know the in's and out's of hardware but I'm at least familiar with things - it's not a huge deal for me and like others have pointed out, I know to expect that a bunch of that 32 won't be available. But I can't know how much. I know the OS installed is Windows 8.1 and I know it's a regular x86 chip (so it should be the x86 version of Windows not that RT stuff I don't really understand). But okay, how much space does Windows 8.1 take? And how much crap did ASUS add to it that I may or may not be able to remove?

I don't know!?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IE/windows-8/system-requirements says 16gb

But what else is installed?
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013

Okay - but how much space does that take? I don't know! And it's not like there just one way to install office. Office is a whole collection of products each with lots of optional features. There is no way I can figure out how much space it takes.

Even if I search reviews and opinions - I can't find an answer.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/laptops/385585/asus-transformer-book-t100 is one such review I found with Google. The thing is - none of the answers are official. They aren't from the company - heck they aren't even from the reviewer - it's from random people and they give conflicting answers!

24GB is used, and that includes a couple of audio books (Audible), Windows, Office 365, Firefox and a few other Windows desktop applications and a dozen or so apps.

I didn't install very much before I realised I had 11GB remaining.

I can't be sure, I'm just *assuming* they both know what they are talking about and both have the same 32gb model. But they both are pretty close. Let's say I trust them....I should have 11-12 gigs of free space. So I go and buy it - but I only have 6! Oh no!

Can I return it. I need at least 10gb....but no, I can't return it. Because the company didn't advertise free space. I just went off what the internet told me.

Why would my version not have the same amount of free space as those other two? Well, software changes. Windows 8.1 has already had a bunch of patches and those certainly can increase space. It's unlikely to do so by 6 gigs, but my point is that it CAN happen, and I have no way of knowing or protecting myself. Heck - a lot of sellers sneakily change the hardware - my current Cell phone is a great example - the Samsung Galaxy Ace came out, got a lot of great reviews and after the first 12 months they switched the CPU and updated the fine print so that it was a different model number (they added a T). The new CPU performs worse. In my case, the O2 website showed the original (good CPU) model but they sold me the worse CPU model. I was able to return it (you can find my post to O2 about it on Boards.ie) they HAD to take it because the CPU was explicitly stated. But with available storage space it is never stated.

I don't see any reason NOT to make companies disclose this. It would cost virtually nothing for them to do and it would greatly improve the shopping experience of customers.

RossieMan

I googled "how much space does the OS take up in the 32GB version of the Asus Transformer".

and this is what was there, on the 1st link.



The internet is such a devil.


But on a level i do agree, the information should be posted along with it on websites like PCworld. they should do a proper review of the items.

But saying its false advertisement, comon.

Guy:Incognito

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Imagine you bought a 1TB laptop in PC World and only 250GB was accessible?

If you bought a 1tb laptop in pc world you wouldn't have 1tb of free space.

The particular phone the op bought seems to have a smaller amount of free space than others alright but they all have less free space than total space.

embraer170

I see the OP's problem and am somewhat surprised at how little understanding there is for it. Manufacturers should be forced to disclose available storage space, in addition to total storage. I seriously doubt most normal consumers would expect to only find 1GB free on a 4GB device...

Paulw

The average consumer wouldn't have a clue to start with. They just know that a bigger number means more space.

As for the suppliers - they can't state the exact available space. This would depend on the specific version of OS installed, the specific apps installed, any space used with the installation, etc.

Buy an identical phone from the operators in Ireland, and each will have different available space. Buy an identical phone 3 months apart, and they will have different available space, since patches may have been factory installed (assuming it is a new phone and not one that has been just sitting in stock).

Bottom line, the retailer has no obligation to detail the available space on a device, and they definitely don't advertise available space. They detail the device capacity.

Talk about this thread being a "First World problem". :rolleyes:

cdebru

Cyber Ghost wrote: »

This has ZERO to do with how many bytes are in a bit and whatnot.

It's to do with the HUGE variation between advertised space and what you end up getting.

For example I bought two 4GB phones lately and one has 1GB (75% less than advertised) available for apps and the other 2GB.

How am I supposed to know this until I take it home and turn it on?

Does the law state that "ah shur you could have checked it online before you bought it" - me hole.

This is a joke of an issue imo and the companies get away with blue murder.
This could easily fall into false advertising and I don't know how they can get away with it.

But what about updates to operating systems ? If a company had to promise you that you would have x amount of storage and you get home to realise that there is a 200mb update you had to install would you have a complaint that you had been misled ?

Would it not encourage some suppliers to just install a bare bones OS so that it would appear that you had more storage even though the OS may be virtually useless.

witchgirl26

You know what you could do - ask the nice people in the shop.

My mam was buying an iPad a couple of years ago. Not a clue what a gb or mb was really except that the bigger meant more space. She chatted away to the guy in the shop who asked her what she'd be using it for etc. He said she'd probably be fine with the 32gb based on what she was looking for. In the end she decided to go for the 64gb one because she decided to have the extra space for music (which she hadn't originally planned to put on it). Done, dusted. No idea of the actual free space on it when she got it but it was enough for her needs.

And if she was ordering it online......well then she'd be able to do a nice little google search.

I do agree that maybe they should put an approx of the free space but it is not false advertising.

UCDVet

RossieMan wrote: »

I googled "how much space does the OS take up in the 32GB version of the Asus Transformer".

and this is what was there, on the 1st link.



The internet is such a devil.


But on a level i do agree, the information should be posted along with it on websites like PCworld. they should do a proper review of the items.

But saying its false advertisement, comon.

I don't mean this to be disrespectful, because it is a bit confusing but...

1.) The reviewer is Brad Linder. That is, some guy on the internet. He doesn't work for ASUS and he doesn't work for PcWorld.ie - what he says his particular model has for storage doesn't matter. I don't doubt that he is correct, at the time of writing it, for the model he got....but that doesn't mean PcWorld or ASUS or anyone else has to honor it in the future.

2.) He reviewed the 64GB model that is not available in Ireland or the UK. He only mentions that the 32GB model 'should' have around 15GB. He is also claiming that the model will come with 40GB of storage and not 32GB storage....which is a pretty substantial difference.

3.) His review says 15GB - I've found two examples of people who have purchased the 32GB model who claim they have around 11....so again - if they went back to the store, they might be able to return it; but they don't have a legal right to. The 15gb claim isn't coming from the shop....just a guy with a blog.

4.) The review was written on August 11th. I know for a fact Microsoft has released a Windows 8.1 patch that is causing a lot of ASUS T100 users serious problems, so much so that ASUS has a new BIOS update available. I have no idea how these (or future) updates will impact the available storage....odds are, probably not much at all. But that's not always the case. Also, that was before the official release date - it may or may not reflect what I would get if I bought one today.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but a blog is no different than 'my friend told me'. You can't return something because 'your friend told you it would be different'.

Guy:Incognito

cdebru wrote: »

But what about updates to operating systems ? If a company had to promise you that you would have x amount of storage and you get home to realise that there is a 200mb update you had to install would you have a complaint that you had been misled ?
.

Like some recently released consoles?

Carawaystick

The consumer protection act of 2007
Section 43.3(b)
Outlines misleading practises

I'd say being left with ~25% of advertised storage is being misled.
The act places no onus on consumers to look up specs on the internet or elsewhere
But sets the bar at an average consumer

Misleading commercial practises are illegal and retailers can be convicted for doing so

Paulw

Carawaystick wrote: »

The consumer protection act of 2007
Section 43.3(b)
Outlines misleading practises

How is it misleading? Just because it doesn't meet the OPs expectation doesn't mean that it is misleading. The advertisement only gives the memory capacity, and never onces mentions available space for the end user.

But, if the OP wants to take the retailer to court, it could be interesting.

kippy

Paulw wrote: »

How is it misleading? Just because it doesn't meet the OPs expectation doesn't mean that it is misleading. The advertisement only gives the memory capacity, and never onces mentions available space for the end user.

But, if the OP wants to take the retailer to court, it could be interesting.

Interesting in that he'll be laughed outta the place.....

Carawaystick

If the retailer advertised a device with 64GB memory and that it had space for video, music and photo files, and this space, discovered after purchase was 10MB, enough for several vines and a few tunes, I'd feel Misled.
being available
My first pc had a 20MB hard disk, and almost 0,4MB of this was taken up by DOS5.1, leaving me with 19.6 MB of available space.
I didn't feel misled.

There's a reasonable balance between those two extremes, and I'd say it's probably closer to 100% of advertised space being available for a user than 50% of space available.

I'd say if a retailer told you a device had X storage installed, and you found out that after the OS was installed, you only had <0.25X, the retailer has misled you.

re. Paulw's post, how would the OP's expectation be created?
The retailer has to meet the average expectation.
If a consumer bought a nokia feature phone with 256MB storage as their last phone, and got >200MB storage, they'd be entitled to expect the overhead would be less or similar in anew phone and that maybe os storage would be seperate to user storage, like every phone they bought before now.

And the advertiser has to deal with these expectations, not the manufacturer.