iSuppli estimates that the actual cost for the iPad is $260

For the many people that gobbled up the Apple iPad on launch day, it looked as though they were all too content with forking out huge lumps of cash to get a piece of the latest gadget – easily dishing out well over $500 for the various models that are available. We'd gather that there would be few people that were less willing to hand it over so easily because they wondered in the back of their mind over what kind of markups were being thrown onto the iPad. isuppli recently adjusted their previous February estimate for the total cost of the 16GB Wi-Fi only version of the iPad to $259.60 – that's a $40 increase from the preliminary estimates. That's partly due to the fact that the final iPad shipped included more silicon chips than expected – for example, the touchscreen controls uses three chips alone. Breaking down the components piece by piece, iSuppli gathered that the screen costs $95, 16GB memory at $29.50, single billet of aluminum for $10.50, and the custom-built A4 processor at $26.80. All in all, they conclude that the total cost for the 32GB model stands at $289.10 while the 64GB model tallied in at a whooping $349.10. Andrew Rassweiler, iSuppli principal analyst, said that the items associated in powering the touchscreen and UI consisted more than 40 percent of the total cost for the iPad. As much as everyone else who did not purchase an iPad recently would like to see a drop in price, Apple Management was heard saying that prices “will remain nimble.” So expect to see the pricing structure in place right now stick for some time.

Apple iPad Review

via AppleInsider