Microsoft Sued Over Surface Tablet Storage Claims

Microsoft Corp. faces a lawsuit filed by a California lawyer who alleges that his Surface tablet came with only half of the advertised 32 gigabytes (GB) of storage space since the operating system and pre-installed applications use the rest.

The Associated Press (AP) reports the plaintiff bought a 32 GB Surface tablet to discover that only 16 GB storage space was available to him. The lawsuit, filed at the Superior Court in Los Angeles, seeks class-action status.

The suit alleges false advertising and unfair business practices. It also seeks a change in the advertising policy of Microsoft and disgorging of the revenue and profits earned from its alleged misconduct.

Microsoft Corp. told the AP that consumers are well aware that the operating system and pre-installed applications are stored in the internal memory of the device, which reduces the total storage space.

The company also said its website contains information about the storage space of its Surface tablets. However, the plaintiff’s lawyer said that the information on the company’s website is very difficult to find.

Due to two definitions of the word gigabyte, flash drives and regular hard drives typically provide less usable memory than their labels say. A 16 GB drive has about 15 GB free storage space for consumers. Many mobile devices commonly have less usable storage space than advertised, reports AP.

If you or your loved one has been wronged by consumer fraud, contact Sokolove Law today for a free legal consultation and to find out if a consumer fraud lawyer may be able to help you.

Tags: