Q: What is the free storage on the brand new ipad3, 32gb.

They always describe drive size as unformatted and empty.  By the time you format it and add on iOS, you lose some.  27GB doesn't surprise me.

That's about right and what I remember when mine was just out of the box.  Remember, you have an operating system (iOS) and native built in apps already installed on your iPad, which takes up memory from the beginning.  Just like the OS on your home computer........

By default the drive is rounded up to 32GB, then Apple has to install the operating system (in addition to Carrier information).

That sounds about right - some of the 'lost' space is from how capacity is reported and formatted (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2419), iOS itself and the built-in apps.

Sounds right.

Mine shows 27.9.

my 16 gig ipad had 13-14 open, so the ratio is right. The 'real' capacity is 31 gig and change I believe, which is rounded to 32. Then add in a few gig for the operating system and the equivalent of drivers and you're down to 27 and change.

Just like when you buy a 4 gig flash drive it's really 3.7 or something like that.