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And if you thought that Verizon memory chip was oddly expensive...

You have to buy a $100 memory chip to listen to music downloads on that Verizon Chocolate phone, remember? Why does it cost $100? Look at the illustration.

The big card is a standard format SD card size. The tiny one next to it is the new Sandisk 2G memory chip which powers the Chocolate. The big card, therefore, is just a card carrier, so you can plug your microSD card into your standard SD socket in the PC...

So it's new, and shiny, and that's why it costs a bit more than the $50 you were possibly expecting...

“The need for higher-capacity microSD cards demonstrates that MP3 phones have come of age,” said Jeff Kost, SanDisk vice president, handset business.  “Clearly, many consumers are embracing the convergence of digital music and mobile communications because it allows them to carry just a single device", he said.

The company says its removable flash memory cards "represent the most convenient way for people to store, transfer and play music on their handsets, so we are delighted to work with Verizon Wireless on this new product introduction.”

Measuring about one-fourth the size of a standard SD card, the fingernail-size microSD card provides high-performance and expanded memory capacity for mobile phones using SanDisk’s TransFlash card slot or any new devices that are marked as microSD slots.