Report: Does size really matter? Surface Pro provides more storage than MacBook Air

If you have a few hours to spare, or an entire year if you're exceptionally slow, there's a super piece over at ZDNet that goes into the whole issue surrounding available storage on the Surface RT. Ed Bott has gone into some length to compare the Surface Pro 128GB against the MacBook Air 128GB to see just which product offers more room for consumers to wiggle.

The Surface RT and upcoming Pro Windows tablets have come under fire for not offering enough storage, but does the Apple Ultrabook offer much more? And if not, why hasn't it too come under fire? We'll not cover Bott's article in its entirely, but we'll take a look at the tl;dr version, particularly useful if you're in a hurry and can only spare a few minutes.

Check out the below chart, which illustrates the findings quite well.

As one can see, the MacBook Air with 128GB of internal storage only provides 77.3 percent of the advertised space for user data. The Surface Pro with 128GB of storage offers 75.2 percent of advertised capacity for user data. There's really not enough in it for Microsoft to be criticised for zapping space from tablet owners. What's more is there's a minor system tweak on Windows that will free up 81.8 percent of the capacity without impacting performance.

Why does this report matter? It shows that storage is well on par with the competition and other hardware. 128GB is more than enough space for the average consumer, and with 90GB for user data, does anyone really need more? Xbox Music & Video, SkyDrive and Office leave a lighter footprint on the system to free up space for temporary files and more.

As mentioned above, Bott's in-depth article over on ZDNet is well worth checking out for the full run through so be sure to read up on it.

Source: ZDNet