Computer Makers Sued Over Hard-Drive Size Claims

[ibe98765]

Computer Makers Sued Over Hard-Drive Size Claims Sep 18, 5:02 PM (ET) LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A group of computer owners has filed a lawsuit against some of the world's biggest makers of personal computers, claiming that their advertising deceptively overstates the true capacity of their hard drives.The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, was filed earlier this week in Los Angeles Superior Court against Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL.O), Dell Inc. (DELL.O), Gateway Inc. (GTW.N), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ.N), IBM (IBM.N), Sharp Corp. (6753.T), Sony Corp. (6758.T) and Toshiba Corp. (6502.T)The lawsuit brought by Los Angeles residents Lanchau Dan, Adam Selkowitz, Tim Swan and John Zahabian centers around the way that computer hard drives are described by manufacturers.Representatives of the eight defendants were not immediately available to comment.According to the lawsuit, computer hard drive capacities are described in promotional material in decimal notation, but the computer reads and writes data to the drives in a binary system.The result is that a hard drive described as being 20 gigabytes would actually have only 18.6 gigabytes of readable capacity, the lawsuit said.The plaintiffs said this difference in convention is deceptive and leaves buyers with less storage than they thought they were getting when they purchased their computers.For example, when a consumer buys what he thinks is a 150 gigabyte hard drive, the plaintiffs said, he actually gets only 140 gigabytes of storage space. That missing 10 gigabytes, they claim, could store an extra 2,000 digitized songs or 20,000 pictures.The lawsuit asks for an injunction against the purportedly unfair marketing practices, an order requiring the defendants to disclose their practices to the public, restitution, disgorgement of ill-gotten profits and attorneys' fees.

[Jeber]

Grrr, more of this "I'm sueing you rather than thinking for myself" (coffee is hot, causes burns/McDonald's = fat/HD sizes don't really mean anything, do the math) nonsense. OK, I'm not against accuracy in sales brochures, but if the retailers would list the exact size of their HDs, so should the manufacturers. And so should all the people who write those PC books. And so should we. So running it backwards, if we (the forums and posters) start using only accurate sizes when discussing hard drives, then maybe the writers will join in next. Upward influence. While you all do that, I'll be calling my lawyer.

[ibe98765]

I think we should all sue gas stations and make them use whole numbers. No more of this 1.99 9/10 cents per gallon. If I buy exactly one gallon of gas, how are they supposed to give me change of 1/10 of a penny? They don't. They keep the 1/10 penny and it only adds to obscene oil company profits and we, the consumer, get ripped off! Let's start a class action suit!!!

[Marsden11]

Remember monitors and "viewable" area? These guys will probably win.

[volunteer]

Probably, just another case of Tort lawyers trolling for a huge class action lawsuit. Multi-millions for lawyers and $20 discounts from the defendants. Makes me think of all the demeaning lawyer jokes I've heard. Ken

[Prelude76]

how about suing gas stations since they jack up rates the split second something bad happens anywhere in world, and wait 3 months to slowly drop prices after oil prices drop thru the floor.actually, the worst lawsuits are the "i'm suing you because my stocks dropped in price when your company went bankrupt." come on, stocks are like lottery or casino: you're basically gambling if stock will go up or down. stoooooopid.

[FuzzButt]

I hope his one just costs the lawyers a bunch of money. Funny thing is those "Missing" Gigabytes are actually on the drive. There are extra sectors there for signaling and other overhead that is not visable after a format.Chris

[GolfProRM]

The whole thing is based on the wonderful number 1024 (2^10)... The harddrives are advertised as 80 gigabytes where 80gig = 80 billion bytes... Translated into actual gigabytes by using 2^10 to get to kilobytes, megabytes and then gigabytes, you end up with an actual (windows read) capacity of 74.5 gigabytes...It's shady advertising, but when you buy an 80 gig drive, you have a drive with 80billion bytes I've never liked this form of advertising, but why advertise a 74.5 gig drive, when you can advertise 80? Real Math (dividing by 2^10 or 1024 to go up in size)80,000,000,000 bytes =78,125,000 kilobytes =76,293.9 Megabytes =74.5 GigabytesAdvertising Math (dividing by 1000 to go up in size)80,000,000,000 bytes =80,000,000 kilobytes =80,000 Megabytes =80.0 Gigabytes

[RandomBox]

Hey jeber, I feel your frustration but PLEASE donot use the case of "McDonald's and hot coffee" to fortify your disdain for the present US tort system! Have you ever read the "real" contention behind this case? If not, you may wish to go to the Stella Awards site (http://www.stellaawards.com/stella.html) and form your own opinion based on the true facts behind this case? What that link does not tell you is that originally McDonald's told Stella Liebeck that they would not even assist her with her medical bills; even though she had shown them that this was a patent disrespect for a known and recurring problem with their coffee! Right, wrong or otherwise ...........!Stella Awards newsletters make for a good read as well!On an another note, has anyone heard the class action lawsuit against/about a recent Creed concert? It turns out that the Creed "fans" were quite upset that the lead singer came on stage drunk and/or "medicated" (stoned?)! They want refunds and they mean business! Oh mahn, oh mahn, oh mahn!

[henderrob]

I'm still reeling from the revelation that I don't have a 40GB harddrive! I feel a little light headed.... I think I'm gonna faint!

[ibe98765]

Well, I am one happy dude! I just received my piece of a calss action suit against Nissan for some past leasing flim flam. Got a grand total of $1.71. That's $500,000/291,506 eligible members. Think I'll go out and buy 1.71 lottery tickets.

[ibe98765]

The whole thing is based on the wonderful number 1024 (2^10)...  The harddrives are advertised as 80 gigabytes where 80gig = 80 billion bytes...  Translated into actual gigabytes by using 2^10 to get to kilobytes, megabytes and then gigabytes, you end up with an actual (windows read) capacity of 74.5 gigabytes...It's shady advertising, but when you buy an 80 gig drive, you have a drive with 80billion bytes I've never liked this form of advertising, but why advertise a 74.5 gig drive, when you can advertise 80?  Real Math (dividing by 2^10 or 1024 to go up in size)80,000,000,000 bytes =78,125,000 kilobytes =76,293.9 Megabytes =74.5 GigabytesAdvertising Math (dividing by 1000 to go up in size)80,000,000,000 bytes =80,000,000 kilobytes =80,000 Megabytes =80.0 Gigabytes

Oh boy! Now you want the average consumer to understand binary math when they can't even understand how to download and apply security patches? What's next octal and hexidecimal conversion? We'll make programmers out of you yet, maties!

[epp_b]

It's exactly as ibe98765 says it: The mfg.'s are advertising it as 1 Billion bytes/GB, when it's really 1,073,741,824 bytes/GB. When you devided the number of bytes by 1000 rather than by 1024, the outcome is a nice and even (albeit, incorrect) number. As Garfield puts it: Big Fat Harry Deal!So mfg.'s are trying to make their numbers more consumer-friendly! But the average consumer wouldn't know a gigabyte from a processor! So what do they care about exact numbers? Nothing!!! All they care to see is a nice, even number that tells them "there's lots of space in here, so you can fit everything you've ever wanted". If only these lusers would realize that this is what mfg.'s are trying to do...