Hey, turns out there is a 16 GB Surface. It’s the 32 GB Surface.

The Verge:

Microsoft has revealed exactly how much free space new Surface owners are left with after taking into account Windows RT and system-related files. For the 32GB version of the new tablet, users have access to only 16GB of storage, with the remaining half taken up by Windows recovery tools, Windows RT, Microsoft Office, and built-in apps.

Buh? By contrast, my 32 GB third generation iPad has 28 GB of usable space. Of course, you could probably get a hunk of the Surface’s space back by deleting Office, but the ability to run total awesomeness like Office is the Surface’s key selling point.

But this is another problem with Microsoft’s “one device that does it all” scheme. How reasonable is it to have your one device have only 16 GB of free space? Or even the 48 GB of the “64 GB” Surface? Not very. So the truth is, you can’t realistically have one device that can do it all. You’ll have to have more than one. And if you have to have more than one, why not have them designed for different use cases?

Yeah, I know. I don’t know why I keep having this argument, either.