- Some Amazon third-party sellers are listing cheap laptops with 1.1TB storage
- In fact, these laptops have OneDrive subscriptions bundled, so the reality is 1TB of that storage is in the cloud, and the local drive is 128GB
- That’s designed to mislead buyers, and in some cases, the subterfuge around this gets even worse
There’s a worrying trend with laptops listed for sale on Amazon (or indeed other retailers) in which the sellers are lumping cloud storage in with the drive space quoted when it comes to listing the specs.
Neowin picked up on this Reddit thread and observed that this is a practice that’s currently creeping in with third-party sellers, and it’s becoming more prevalent on Amazon, but also other retailers in the US like Newegg.
What’s happening is that those sellers are advertising laptops like this, with the headline: “HP Ultrabook 15.6′ Laptop, 1.2TB Storage, Microsoft 365 Included, Intel 13th 4-Core.”
Now, after that, as the second line of the product description, you’ll find it says: “1TB OneDrive, 128GB UFS, no Mouse, Moonlight Blue.”
What this actually means is that the 1TB of OneDrive storage, which is part of the Microsoft 365 (for a year) bundle that’s included with the laptop, is part of that quoted 1.2TB of storage. On top of that, the SSD (a UFS model) is actually just 128GB, so it’s been rounded up to 0.2TB somehow, when really, even with the cloud storage, this should be quoted as 1.1TB.
There are multiple examples of this on Amazon, some of which admittedly make it clearer, stating storage specs such as: “1.1TB Storage (1TB OneDrive + 128GB SSD).” With the breakdown right next to the figure here, you can at least immediately see where this 1.1TB is coming from (and at least they’ve rounded down, not up, with the SSD, too).
But still, less tech-savvy buyers may, even in those cases, just see 1.1TB and gloss over the bit in brackets.
Going back to the first example of the HP Ultrabook 15.6, this is even more duplicitous, because it only mentions the RAM loadout in one place (which is easy to miss). The notebook carries just 4GB of system memory, yet in the full spec breakdown the seller says: “Up to 32GB RAM can smoothly run your games and photo- and video-editing applications, as well as multiple programs and browser tabs, all at once. 1.2B [sic] Storage leaves the power at your fingertips with the fastest data transfers currently available.”
Again, mentioning that the laptop is ‘up to’ 32GB of RAM is technically true (as other models in the same line-up could pack more), but the seller is obviously hoping you’ll read this as the notebook actually having 32GB of RAM.
And you won’t be “smoothly” running anything in Windows 11 with 4GB, let’s face it. (Even though technically it is the minimum RAM spec, you need 8GB for anything like a decent experience in Microsoft’s OS, and even that’s looking much shakier these days).
The mention of 1.2TB (with a typo) storage in the detailed specs also suggests that this is the full size of the SSD, and the description of having the “fastest data transfers currently available” is clearly laughable.
Analysis: shady practices to watch out for
There are lots of pitfalls out there in terms of shady third-party sellers flogging cheap laptops with what appear to be too-good-to-be-true specs. And as the old adage runs, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. However, as one Redditor in the above linked thread puts it: “I know so many people around me who would just fall for this…”
It pays to read spec details carefully, then, and to be skeptical of anything that looks too much like a red-hot bargain – because you may just end up getting burned. If in any doubt, check with a friend who’s into PCs, and don’t forget that here at TechRadar we’ll regularly highlight bargain laptops – particularly in the big sales like Prime Day or Black Friday – and you can be sure those deals are golden.
As for the dangers out there, particularly watch out for hidden low amounts of RAM, as we saw above, and slow old processors which very cheap laptops are often built around (typically aging Celerons). But the latest trick, as shown here, is bargain basement laptops with 1.1TB or 1.2TB storage advertised which are really just bundled free OneDrive subscriptions for a year. You won’t ever get a laptop with a 1TB SSD for just a few hundred dollars.
Something else to watch out for as a catch is laptops which have something like “628GB storage” listed when in reality that’s a 128GB SSD with a 500GB external hard drive bundled. While it’s still handy to have that extra storage – or indeed a free 1TB slab of space on OneDrive (albeit for just a year before you have to pay for it) – it’s very different to having the space on the local drive, of course.
The best laptops for all budgets
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