My perfect phone - will even forgive dual LED rather than Xenon - OTHER THAN 50Mb internal memory. Less than 90mb on N Series last seen I believe 18 months ago in the N77.

Why the backwards step - has memory become expensive all of a sudden?

Running 6220 Classic (not even N series) with 100Mb. Just running Mail for Exchange and I'm consuming 49Mb so there's no way I'll be able to upgrade and enjoy the benefit of a much improved build quality - 6220 is not good in this department.

Completely perplexed why a "smartphone" in Q4 2008 would be pushed out into the market in this condition.

Patrick

As that means storage memory (the C-drive in phone memory), you can always use an 8GB microSD card, instead.

I imagine you can install Mail for Exhange to the memory card, and it can keep its files there, and an 8GB card will handle your 49MB just fine (you won't even notice it is there).

Custom and practice means I install programmes to internal and data to memory cards. Even if I was inclined to change how I set up a phone I couldn't in respect of Mail for Exchange as it has to be installed to internal memory. In essence Nokia has designed a phone which will preclude just about everybody using MS Exchange Server - good business practice?

As I said you've got to go back 18 months to see internal memory this small on the N series and if Nokia felt their N series customers could now get by on reduced internal memory why is the N96/85 etc all sporting at least twice the memory. It's there for a reason.

On a cost and/or size basis these two differences surely cannot be significant enough to justify their decision. I'm therefore inclined to believe that it's as much about slicing their N series customer base into distinct segments so as to maximise the sales in each segment. Nothing wrong with that as such but I'm personally not inclined to trade up to the N85 (do not want a slider) to tick the one box which in my opinion is missing. I reckon the loss of ex WinMo Exchange Server users will likely cancel out those who do decide to trade up.