'Borderline scam' 1.1TB HP laptop deal on Amazon draws consumer ire, laptop has 128GB SSD and 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage — 'generous' $499 third-party laptop deal sounds too good to be true, because it is
Beware cheap laptops with suspiciously high storage capacities
If you’re looking for a new laptop, you’ll need to double-check the storage on those listings. A worrying new trend, spotted in recent weeks, shows that third-party sellers of popular laptop brands are marketing their laptops with terabytes of storage, despite only including a measly 128GB of physical storage capacity, with the rest made up of Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage. It's enough for it to be called a "borderline scam" by one angry commentator.
This has been rumbling on for some time, with complaints on Reddit and social media from bemused consumers about the practice. It’s fair to say that marketing a laptop with over eight times the actual storage it has isn’t ideal, but a further fly in the ointment is that the capacity being offered isn’t even permanent.
The problem appears most prevalent on Amazon. A quick search of the retailing behemoth shows several laptops on sale from major brands, including HP and Lenovo, with listings that prominently advertise over 1TB of storage, with the majority made up of Microsoft’s cloud storage offering. This HP laptop, for instance, shows a 'limited-time deal' price of $499.99 for a laptop that supposedly offers 1.1TB of storage, but 1TB of that is from OneDrive cloud storage.
It appears, too, that the practice was even more egregious a few weeks ago, before it gained public attention. A Reddit post in the r/LinusTechTips subreddit showed HP laptops being sold with misleading product headlines. In one of those examples, a HP laptop on sale at Amazon describes 1.2TB of storage, with a mention of its 128GB of physical storage relegated to the second line of the product’s description. That report also confirmed earlier examples of the same issue at Newegg, although those appear to have been removed, at least for now.
At Amazon, however, the issue continues. Multiple examples of laptops with similar headlines, albeit slightly more honest combinations like “1.1TB Storage (1TB OneDrive + 128GB SSD),” remain on sale, including this HP laptop for $499.99. All are being sold by third-party sellers who, in many cases, have established feedback dating back at least a year, with hundreds or thousands of reviews. That laptop, as with many of the other examples I’ve seen, shows only a one-year subscription to Microsoft 365 (which includes OneDrive storage) advertised – that “1.1TB” will start to cost you extra after 12 months.
Practices like this from sellers are certainly not popular. A post on X by Max Weinbach, showcasing another HP laptop on sale, gained nearly 1 million views at the time of publication, with hundreds of reposts and comments, with one user giving it the "borderline scam" description, although there's nothing to suggest that anything illegal is actually taking place here.
It might not be illegal, but it does leave a bad taste in the mouth. Even if you’re reasonably tech savvy, you’ll be expected to look out for the storage ruse from now on. Those who aren’t, who couldn’t tell a OneDrive from an SSD, will be left with a potentially inferior product as a result. While it appears that some of the less descriptive headlines have now changed, there's no indication that the practice is stopping at all.
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Let this be a PSA for anyone looking to buy a laptop in the coming weeks and months: don’t trust everything you see, always do your due diligence, and if you’re buying from a third-party seller, make sure to double and triple-check those specs. If it looks too good to be true, well, it might just be.
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Ben Stockton is a deals writer at Tom’s Hardware. He's been writing about technology since 2018, with bylines at PCGamesN, How-To Geek, and Tom’s Guide, among others. When he’s not hunting down the best bargains, he’s busy tinkering with his homelab or watching old Star Trek episodes.
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mevinyavin Well, that's the first mistake - buying at all from third-party sellers. Don't buy from third-party sellers and you won't have this problem, among a dozen others (such as computers upgraded by the seller with who-knows-what parts but listed as new, computers with unnecessary and usually misleading comparisons to other processors...).Reply
Buy on Amazon? Look for "Sold by Amazon." (Filters not always helpful.) Buy on Newegg? Filter with the "Sold by Newegg" button (they sell upgraded systems these days, but I have no data on them). Buy on Walmart? Filter by sold by Walmart and then double-check each listing, as this can still result in some non-Walmart systems. Buy on Best Buy? Filter by in-store pickup - that's the only thing I found that works, even though you lose some computer options that way. -
bigdragon Off-device storage shouldn't be advertised as part of the device -- especially when that storage requires a recurring subscription to maintain! At best this is a misleading product. At worst it's a definite scam.Reply
Beware of Amazon. Their storefront continues to go downhill. I've shifted all my tech purchases to local stores (Microcenter and Best Buy) because of receiving used, mislabeled, and defective products too many times. -
Mindstab Thrull Reply
If the description right up front says that it includes OneDrive - and both the image in the article and the LTT Reddit links do - then while it might be scummy, I don't think it's a scam. You ARE getting the +1TB storage, and they are telling you up front that it's OneDrive, which is a cloud service. If it was buried in the details further down (which a lot of people don't read), then I would be more apt to agree. But you're getting what they advertised. Five seconds of googling will tell you what OneDrive is - anyone can type "what is OneDrive" and get a useful-enough answer fast.giorgiog said:It's not a 'borderline scam', IT IS a scam.
Bad price? Sure. Scam? Strong disagree. They're not the same thing. -
heffeque Reply
It says 1.1 TB of storage, which is actually not true:Mindstab Thrull said:If the description right up front says that it includes OneDrive - and both the image in the article and the LTT Reddit links do - then while it might be scummy, I don't think it's a scam. You ARE getting the +1TB storage, and they are telling you up front that it's OneDrive, which is a cloud service. If it was buried in the details further down (which a lot of people don't read), then I would be more apt to agree. But you're getting what they advertised. Five seconds of googling will tell you what OneDrive is - anyone can type "what is OneDrive" and get a useful-enough answer fast.
Bad price? Sure. Scam? Strong disagree. They're not the same thing.
It only has 128 GB of storage (local permanent), and a 1 TB of an online service that requires an internet connection to work, and a subscription that is NOT included in the price of the laptop's lifetime.
In Europe that would be clearly illegal and you would get your money back without effort. -
USAFRet This is not new.Reply
There were low end laptops with this description years ago.
Similarly, RAM + a small Optane drive = LOTs OF RAM!!! -
I This isn't just a scam, it is illegal. That storage is not included ON/IN the laptop. It does not matter if it can access that storage because any laptop can.Reply
Fine print can not take away what the bold print gives. It is a clear attempt to deceive the buyer, otherwise it would not be mentioned at all. In some countries you might get your hands cut off for this. -
davidjao Reply
But you're wrong. You aren't getting the 1TB storage. You're getting the 1TB storage for 1 year. After that, you have to pay. I'm not allowed to advertise a laptop for sale if I'm really only leasing the laptop to you for one year. This is exactly the same situation. They're not giving you what they advertised. It's a complete scam, and absolutely illegal.Mindstab Thrull said:If the description right up front says that it includes OneDrive - and both the image in the article and the LTT Reddit links do - then while it might be scummy, I don't think it's a scam. You ARE getting the +1TB storage, and they are telling you up front that it's OneDrive, which is a cloud service. If it was buried in the details further down (which a lot of people don't read), then I would be more apt to agree. But you're getting what they advertised. Five seconds of googling will tell you what OneDrive is - anyone can type "what is OneDrive" and get a useful-enough answer fast.
Bad price? Sure. Scam? Strong disagree. They're not the same thing. -
hwertz Do any computers still have room for a SATA HDD? A 1TB notrebook HDD costs so little, they could really pop in a 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD and stay within budget.Reply -
USAFRet Reply
If you don't go for the fashionably thin laptops, yes.hwertz said:Do any computers still have room for a SATA HDD? A 1TB notrebook HDD costs so little, they could really pop in a 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD and stay within budget.
2.5" HDD is exactly the same size and mount points as a 2.5" SATA SSD.
In 2026, a 128GB SSD is laughably small.