Smart phone manufacturing costs

How much does it cost to build your favorite smartphone? That is a question that the folks over at tableausoftware.com have gathered and visualized. Each of the components that make up four popular smart phones: iPhone 4, BlackBerry Torch, Nexus One and the Nokia N8. It is interesting to see that all four phones cost essentially the same in terms of parts, all less than $200 for the parts. But the functionality you get when comparing the iPhone 4 ($194.05) to the BlackBerry Torch ($183.04) is pretty vast. For example, RIM spends MORE on the BlackBerry Torch screen than Apple does on its highly touted retinal display. Even more perplexing is that RIM only spent $8 dollars for their pokey processor, but could have spent around $11 for something blazing like Apple did. Someone really wasn't thinking in the engineering department. It is not surprising to see that Nokia spent the most money for their 12 megapixel camera of all manufacturers. Ironically, Apple spends the most of any manufacturer on Housing/Mechanicals and still had Antennagate.

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