Yikes! A 32GB Microsoft Surface RT has only 16GB free according to the Microsoft Surface FAQ. Thats 16GB for the Operating System! 5GB of that is recovery tools which could be on the net, but instead chews up expensive internal flash memory! This bloat explains the pricing and performance issues with the device. Arguably, you can expand the Surface (and Android devices) with up to 64GB more disk space using a single SD card, but that I/O is pretty slow compared to the built-in flash memory.

In comparison, iOS is way less than 2GB and Android is small too. As portable operating systems should be.