I have quite a few podcasts downloaded, which I forgot to mention, about a gig. Maybe my music is higher bit rate, or I have more email, or the apps I have are aggregately larger in size. I couldn't say beyond that. I misspoke though; I have 3 GB available, not 2.5. That's 9.2 used. It works for me, but I'm sure I'll get larger next time. Hopefully by then 32 GB is standard.