Lawyer Sues Microsoft For Falsely Advertising its Surface Tablet

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Andrew Sokolowski claims that he purchased a Microsoft Surface with 32GB of storage, although soon noticed that only about half of that storage was actually usable. As such, the Associated Press reports that the lawyer from California is now suing Microsoft for false advertising and unfair business practises at the Superior Court in Los Angeles. A class action lawsuit is being sought, which means that all Surface tablet users could receive some kind of settlement from Microsoft if this lawyer is successful in the courtroom.

Microsoft believes that its customers understand that part of the tablet’s storage is occupied by the operating system and preinstalled applications. In fact, Microsoft clarified on Nov 5th, two days prior to Sokolowski purchasing his Surface, that the tablet’s 32GB model and 64GB model only have 16GB and 45GB of usable storage respectively. ”Customers understand the operating system and pre-installed applications reside on the device’s internal storage thereby reducing the total free space,” Microsoft wrote in a statement.

It’s not the first time that a company or brand has advertised products that have less usable storage than claimed. Apple’s iPad, flash drives and regular hard drives all provide less usable memory than listed, although not as substantial as the amount of space that system files take up on the Surface tablet. Nevertheless, Microsoft has addressed the issue several days ago and, thus, should not be responsible for lawsuits of this nature. Microsoft sells its Surface tablet with a traditional return policy, so the customer should simply return the device if he is not satisfied.

[Associated Press]