Sans cover
It turns out that Redmond’s first Windows RT tablet, the Surface RT, costs about $271 to build.
IHS iSuppli tore down the Surface to establish the bill of materials (BOM), but the figure does not cover Microsoft’s fancy touch cover keyboard, which goes for $119 in retail.
Main components include a 1366x768 screen and 32GB of NAND storage, courtesy of Samsung, as well as a Tegra 3 processor from Nvidia. The battery also comes from the house of Samsung, but there’s a good chance Microsoft is also using other vendors for memory chips.
As it turns out, Samsung will be the big winner if the Surface RT takes off, but the company is also hedging its bets thanks to the Nexus 10. Also, let’s not forget that Samsung is a major Apple supplier, so the company should do well no matter which platform does well.
Google and Amazon are selling their tablets with some rather tight margins, but Microsoft is a bit more confident. Perhaps even too confident. Remember the $119 Touch Cover? Some are putting its actual cost at just $16.
More here.
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