What does Microsoft’s Surface tablet and Samsung’s recently released Galaxy S4 have in common? False advertising about storage space.

Users that purchased the 16GB version of Samsung’s latest flagship phone have discovered that half of that advertised memory is already taken up by the phone’s operating system and built-in apps, leaving them with around 8GB for personal use. This is exactly like a problem that Microsoft faced late last year, when it was discovered that their 32GB Surface tablets only had 16GB usable for the user.

In a response to CNET, Samsung doesn’t quite make things any better for disgruntled users looking for answers:

“For the Galaxy S4 16GB model, approximately 6.85GB occupies [the] system part of internal memory, which is 1GB bigger than that of the Galaxy S3, in order to provide [a] high resolution display and more powerful features to our consumers. To offer the ultimate mobile experience to our users, Samsung provides [a] microSD slot on Galaxy S4 for extension of memory.”

And just like Luke Westaway of CNET wondered, I have to ask, is the phone’s high-resolution display even a valid excuse? There are many other phones on the market with high-resolution displays that don’t seem to have this storage problem. Finally, while it’s great that the Galaxy S4 has a microSD slot, only photos and videos can be loaded onto it — Samsung does not allow you to install apps on microSD, meaning apps are limited to the 8GB of internal memory.

Should Samsung be advertising this phone as an 8GB phone instead? Let us know in the comments!

[via CNET]