The fruity cargo cult, Apple and its rival, the search engine Google have been accused of ripping off consumers by charging a 1000 per cent mark-up for extra storage on tablets.

According to consumer group Which, tablet manufacturers can buy Flash storage at a market price of £5.95 for 16GB. However, consumers who purchase a 32GB iPad Air will have to pay £80 more than they would for the 16GB version. Google charges an extra £70 to increase the memory on its Nexus 10 from 16GB to 32GB, and Amazon charges £40 for the same storage increase on its Kindle Fire HDX 8.9.

Which? described the markups as 'outrageous' and advised potential customers to buy a tablet with an SD or microSD slot and add a memory card for a fraction of the cost. Which? complained that the amount of storage space advertised is often not representative of the amount of space available for the customer's songs, apps and photos.

A 16GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 only left 10GB is left for a user’s files after the operating systems and built-in apps are taken into account.