Nokia Lumia 900 teardown exposes $209 worth of parts

Want to see what exactly makes the Nokia Lumia 900 tick? So were the folks at iSuppli, who got a hold of a unit and gave it a full-fledged teardown treatment. It turns out that the smartphone is made out of about $209 worth of components, or approximately $240 less than what it costs off contract. Also, the teardown reveals that the smartphone relies on tried and tested components, instead of going for the most advanced parts available today.

But given how efficient the Windows Phone platform has become, especially after the Tango update, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. As a matter of fact, a Windows Phone handset can run perfectly smooth on a single-core Qualcomm processor and with only 512 megabytes of RAM.

That keeps manufacturing costs down, which in result allows for companies to offer decent smartphones at competitive prices. For example, the Qualcomm chip inside the Nokia Lumia 900 costs $17 apiece, while a dual-core alternative would run for about $22. Even the Bluetooth chip used in the Lumia 900 is an older, but cheaper by $2.50 model, which goes to show how much effort is being put in making the smartphone as affordable as possible.

And in case you are wondering, there is one top-of-the-line component used in the Lumia 900, namely the gyroscope chip, which is used to determine the physical orientation of the device. The chip used is made by ST Microelectronics and is the same one used by Apple for the iPhone 4S.

source: iSuppli via AllThingsD