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This is frustrating. The Surface Pro has a 128 GB option and goes down from there to 64 GB. The Macbook Air has a 128 GB option and goes up from there to 512 GB

This is frustrating. The Surface Pro has a 128 GB option and goes down from there to 64 GB. The Macbook Air has a 128 GB option and goes up from there to 512 GB. Edit: this is factually incorrect. There is also a 64 GB MacBook Air model on offer; I forgot about it. I apologize. ~90 GB of free space on both 128 GB models seems reasonable. Stepping down to just ~26 GB free on the 64 GB model seems unreasonable: the usable capacity is less than half of the advertised capacity. I feel similarly about the recovery partition discussion. If you remove the recovery image, I presume you will not be able to recover the Surface Pro without additional media. The Macbook Air, on the other hand, will allow you to do a fresh re-installation of OS X over the Internet with a completely blank disk: it's baked into the firmware. Therefore, removing the recovery image results in a feature disparity between the systems. Grumble.

mxxx 14y ago
Agreed, it's a bit of a straw man. It's certainly an issue that hard drive capacity is advertised as being higher than it actually is (and that BS apple is pulling is inexcusable), but the actual issue people were taking with the Surface is the fact that when you buy it it's packed so full of bloat and crapware that half the useable disk space is already depleted on a 64gb model.
- cooldeal 14y ago
  >but the actual issue people were taking with the Surface is the fact that when you buy it it's packed so full of bloat and crapware What bloat and crapware are you talking about? Office? If the 128GB MBA is taking up similar space, does it mean that it too comes with "bloat and crapware" ?
- soperj 14y ago
  Pretty sure a bunch of that used space is actually just a recovery partition that you can get rid of if you want to.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    You shouldn't have to tweak a consumer device fresh out of the box. Heck, I program on my MBA and literally the only thing I've done is let it run Software Update when it asks me, change the wallpaper, and dial up the trackpad speed.
    - encoderer 14y ago
      You don't have to. He just said you could.
jacalata 14y ago
No it doesn't. The 11" MBA is available in 64Gb or 128GB. http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?afid=p219|GOUS&cid=AOS-US-KWG-PLA http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...
- nwienert 14y ago
  True, at the base. Still goes up to 512.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    Is there a 11" MBA that comes with more than 128GB of space?
    - rdouble 14y ago
      Yes.
      - recoiledsnake 14y ago
        Thanks, just checked the 128GB model and you're right. But the 256GB model costs $300 more and the 512GB one costs $800 more! That means you can get an MBA 11" 128GB plus a huge 128GB iPad instead of a MBA 11" 512GB.
        rdouble 14y ago
        The larger SSD is indeed a rip off.
        cma 14y ago
        Just picked up a micro SD adapter that sits flush in the MBA; allowing me to add another 64GB for about $55 ($40 card, $15 adapter). Not as fast as the internal storage, but perfectly fine for a music library or photos.
        14y ago
Osiris 14y ago
Microsoft tries to address that issue by including an SD card slot for expanded storage. However, the +$300 that you have to pay to Apple to upgrade from 128GB to 256GB is also completely absurd.
- miloshadzic 14y ago
  You can do that on the MBA as well.
- kabdib 14y ago
  That jump in storage is like printing money. Flash is, what, less than a buck a gigabyte?
  - lloeki 14y ago
    And is dead in minutes under heavy writing. SD cards are really bad working storage, and should only be used as transitive medium.
    - kabdib 14y ago
      The numbers I'm familiar with were under a dollar for Flash that you'd want to have in a computer, with decent bandwidth. Not garbage flash drives made from a chip fab's borderline rejects. Apple is making at least 50% margins on this, probably /much much/ more.
    - hackmiester 14y ago
      I would like to see someone kill an SD card in "minutes." My camera shoots HD video at some stupidly high bit rate and stores it onto my SD card at damn near as fast as the card will take it, and I do this a lot. There are thousands of people who do it even more than I do, and it can take months or years to go through a card.
      - stcredzero 14y ago
        I'm sure longevity is good for taking photos. I bet it wouldn't be so great for compiles on a dev box. Of course, no one would ever do that. It would be just too slow.

mxxx 14y ago

Agreed, it's a bit of a straw man. It's certainly an issue that hard drive capacity is advertised as being higher than it actually is (and that BS apple is pulling is inexcusable), but the actual issue people were taking with the Surface is the fact that when you buy it it's packed so full of bloat and crapware that half the useable disk space is already depleted on a 64gb model.

cooldeal 14y ago
>but the actual issue people were taking with the Surface is the fact that when you buy it it's packed so full of bloat and crapware What bloat and crapware are you talking about? Office? If the 128GB MBA is taking up similar space, does it mean that it too comes with "bloat and crapware" ?
soperj 14y ago
Pretty sure a bunch of that used space is actually just a recovery partition that you can get rid of if you want to.
- rayiner 14y ago
  You shouldn't have to tweak a consumer device fresh out of the box. Heck, I program on my MBA and literally the only thing I've done is let it run Software Update when it asks me, change the wallpaper, and dial up the trackpad speed.
  - encoderer 14y ago
    You don't have to. He just said you could.

jacalata 14y ago

No it doesn't. The 11" MBA is available in 64Gb or 128GB. http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?afid=p219|GOUS&cid=AOS-US-KWG-PLA http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...

nwienert 14y ago
True, at the base. Still goes up to 512.
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  Is there a 11" MBA that comes with more than 128GB of space?
  - rdouble 14y ago
    Yes.
    - recoiledsnake 14y ago
      Thanks, just checked the 128GB model and you're right. But the 256GB model costs $300 more and the 512GB one costs $800 more! That means you can get an MBA 11" 128GB plus a huge 128GB iPad instead of a MBA 11" 512GB.
      - rdouble 14y ago
        The larger SSD is indeed a rip off.
      - cma 14y ago
        Just picked up a micro SD adapter that sits flush in the MBA; allowing me to add another 64GB for about $55 ($40 card, $15 adapter). Not as fast as the internal storage, but perfectly fine for a music library or photos.
        14y ago

Osiris 14y ago

Microsoft tries to address that issue by including an SD card slot for expanded storage. However, the +$300 that you have to pay to Apple to upgrade from 128GB to 256GB is also completely absurd.

miloshadzic 14y ago
You can do that on the MBA as well.
kabdib 14y ago
That jump in storage is like printing money. Flash is, what, less than a buck a gigabyte?
- lloeki 14y ago
  And is dead in minutes under heavy writing. SD cards are really bad working storage, and should only be used as transitive medium.
  - kabdib 14y ago
    The numbers I'm familiar with were under a dollar for Flash that you'd want to have in a computer, with decent bandwidth. Not garbage flash drives made from a chip fab's borderline rejects. Apple is making at least 50% margins on this, probably /much much/ more.
  - hackmiester 14y ago
    I would like to see someone kill an SD card in "minutes." My camera shoots HD video at some stupidly high bit rate and stores it onto my SD card at damn near as fast as the card will take it, and I do this a lot. There are thousands of people who do it even more than I do, and it can take months or years to go through a card.
    - stcredzero 14y ago
      I'm sure longevity is good for taking photos. I bet it wouldn't be so great for compiles on a dev box. Of course, no one would ever do that. It would be just too slow.