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This thread seems to indicate that a MacBook Air with 64 GBs of storage would have about 48 GBs free with just the OS, and a bit less with iLife and some other

This thread seems to indicate that a MacBook Air with 64 GBs of storage would have about 48 GBs free with just the OS, and a bit less with iLife and some other stock apps. Even with iLife, something that the Surface Pro has nothing like, you are getting more usable storage space. So, it sounds like the 64 GB MacBook Air is a much better deal by both being a better thought out machine and having more usable storage space.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
So, it sounds like the 64 GB MacBook Air is a much better deal by both being a better thought out machine and having more usable storage space. Ding, Ding, Ding. Give the man a prize. Yes it is, and that is a problem for Microsoft. The circle is complete, and we can offer Marco an alternative blog post which goes ... "I was amazed to discover how little space was available to the user of the Surface Pro 64GB model. Here, here, and here there are discussions of all the things that are pre-allocated from the SSD. Now it is running a full copy of Windows 8, so all of the OS features are available, but lets compare it to the Macbook Air, a machine with a similar price point and similar computational capability. It leaves Y% of the SSD available and its running Apple's laptop OS MacOS 10. Etc, etc." Perhaps that one will come later. Helps educate the consumer and provides some feedback to Microsoft.
- hackinthebochs 14y ago
  Does it run Office, and every other badly written legacy app from the last 20 years? If not, then its not a "better deal" in most people's minds.
  - BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
    You can run Office on a Surface iff you have enough free space to install it at all :)
    - illuminate 14y ago
      I believe there's so little free space because Office 2013 is preinstalled.
      - dangrossman 14y ago
        Not on the Surface Pro which this thread is about. Only the Surface RT comes with a pre-release version of Office.
        illuminate 14y ago
        Ah, I see that there's a "recovery partition" on the Pro models.
- eclipxe 14y ago
  @hackinthebochs Of course it runs office. And with VMWare or VirtualBox or Parallels...every badly written legacy app is alive and well.
  - lh7777 14y ago
    Yep, although you may have trouble fitting all of that on a 64 GB Air.
pwthornton 14y ago
This is the thread that I was referring to: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583324 http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583324 reply
scholia 14y ago
Except the MacBook Air is a much worse deal by not having a touch screen, by not having a digitizer pen, and by not including the equivalent of a free iPad. You don't in fact get as much capability even if you buy both a MacBook Air and an iPad for much more money. Especially after you've paid for Parallels and a copy of Windows 7 as well ;-) As for the people who haven't quite figured out that you can keep a lot of your files in the cloud (and create them using Microsoft Office in the cloud), the cheap solution to the "storage problem" is as simple as a microSD card and a bit of copying. Yes,it would be much nicer to have a 512GB Flash drive built in, but very few people would be willing to pay the price.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

So, it sounds like the 64 GB MacBook Air is a much better deal by both being a better thought out machine and having more usable storage space. Ding, Ding, Ding. Give the man a prize. Yes it is, and that is a problem for Microsoft. The circle is complete, and we can offer Marco an alternative blog post which goes ... "I was amazed to discover how little space was available to the user of the Surface Pro 64GB model. Here, here, and here there are discussions of all the things that are pre-allocated from the SSD. Now it is running a full copy of Windows 8, so all of the OS features are available, but lets compare it to the Macbook Air, a machine with a similar price point and similar computational capability. It leaves Y% of the SSD available and its running Apple's laptop OS MacOS 10. Etc, etc." Perhaps that one will come later. Helps educate the consumer and provides some feedback to Microsoft.

hackinthebochs 14y ago
Does it run Office, and every other badly written legacy app from the last 20 years? If not, then its not a "better deal" in most people's minds.
- BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
  You can run Office on a Surface iff you have enough free space to install it at all :)
  - illuminate 14y ago
    I believe there's so little free space because Office 2013 is preinstalled.
    - dangrossman 14y ago
      Not on the Surface Pro which this thread is about. Only the Surface RT comes with a pre-release version of Office.
      - illuminate 14y ago
        Ah, I see that there's a "recovery partition" on the Pro models.
eclipxe 14y ago
@hackinthebochs Of course it runs office. And with VMWare or VirtualBox or Parallels...every badly written legacy app is alive and well.
- lh7777 14y ago
  Yep, although you may have trouble fitting all of that on a 64 GB Air.

pwthornton 14y ago

This is the thread that I was referring to: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583324 http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583324 reply

scholia 14y ago

Except the MacBook Air is a much worse deal by not having a touch screen, by not having a digitizer pen, and by not including the equivalent of a free iPad. You don't in fact get as much capability even if you buy both a MacBook Air and an iPad for much more money. Especially after you've paid for Parallels and a copy of Windows 7 as well ;-) As for the people who haven't quite figured out that you can keep a lot of your files in the cloud (and create them using Microsoft Office in the cloud), the cheap solution to the "storage problem" is as simple as a microSD card and a bit of copying. Yes,it would be much nicer to have a 512GB Flash drive built in, but very few people would be willing to pay the price.