Minimum amount of free space on phone?

With a Mac and OS X, there are several rules of thumb floating around with the most common being keep no less than 10% free. Someone I know who writes OS X troubleshooting books says you should never have less than 5GB free on a Mac which provides for having enough free space to perform an Archive & Install if needed which doesn't apply to the iPhone.

10% free on the iPhone would be around 800MB or more like just over 700MB. I've used my iPhone with no problems at 400MB or so free so I usually try to split the difference and keep my free space in the 500MB or so free with no problems.

I would like to think it wouldn't be much, since the "8gb" is already down to 7.27 before you even start!

This is the same for all drives which advertise the decimal equivalent which isn't the actual with the actual being slightly less and OS X alone on the iPhone takes up around 500MB or so.

Like any other computer, as you fill up the "disk/memory", you might find apps run slower. The rule of thumb is to keep it no more than about 75% full, but it's a rough guide. I expect there are many out there with near full iPhones by now, and will comment on their experiences.

I usually leave about 700-800mb free. This is part superstition regarding the 10% rule and also to save room for photos. It may not be superstition, however, since I have noticed that my iPhone does seem more sluggish (Safari occasionally quitting, settings menus and home screen items opening and changing more slowly) if the free space drops below about 600mb.

I've taken mine down to 50mb with no problems...right now it's at 160mb free. I figure a song from the iTunes store is about 5mb give or take, so I would have no qualms about buying and downloading an album if I wanted to.

I agree with the previous post. The old rule of thumb about maintaining at least 10% free applies to hard drives and not solid state memory like the iPhone uses. The iPhone doesn't use virtual disc space like a computer so you don't need to worry about having that extra space. Your main concern should be maintaining enough room for incoming emails and browser cache.

I always leave about 1 GB free -- a) to add that emergency iTunes album if I really really really need it....and b) to make sure there is always free room to run programs....