After discussing this with a mate, we have not found a logic order how our Nokia phones (both 3350) store the messages.
It's not in alphabetical order, nor is it in chronological order.
Anyone have any idea?

I would hazard a guess and say you are given a certain number of slots, initially the messages are stored in order received, but after a while, you delete them and you get empty slots. When you recieve another message, it goes into whichever slot is empty...

im gonna say lancerman would probably be on the money.

mm i have always woundered this, thanks

yea nearly 90% of phones are stored in order of recieving

actually, i just wanna clarify here what kinda nokia we're talking abotu here.

All the symbian 60 nokias (7650, 3650, N-Gage etc..) store them chronologically.

As do a few others.

I think you will find the slot system used in the phones who store the sms messages on the SIM card and not in phone memory.

I'd say the slot based system is for sim card SMS storage phones, ie. the cheaper models, 3310, 3210 etc.

I think phones that can write it to their own memory will store chronologically...

In a sim based message the message it allocated to the first available spot where ever that may be if you had 10 messages and deleted number 7 then thats where the next would go.
as for 6610's etc they are stored in numerical order as recieved if you had 10 messags there and deleted number 7 then the order would drop down and the new msg would become number 1
hope this helps you guys out this comes from working with phones everyday
ahhh i hate phones
cheers

Thats gay as. I can never find important messages again without having to spend ages going through some. The phones should use pointers.