Analyst firm iSuppli has taken apart the Nokia N8, but unlike the people at iFixit who supplied photos of the complete disassembly procedure, they published a rough bill of materials. The BOM, as it’s known in the industry, is the cost of the raw components that make up a device. The screen, the memory, the processor, the body, how much do all these things cost? For the Nokia N8 it’s $187.47. Don’t be upset that they’re selling it for triple or quadruple the price, there are factors that have to be taken into consideration such as the amount of research and development that went into the product, the recuperation of marketing costs, and someone has to pay for the insane level of logistical coordination needed to get those devices around the world, right?
Here’s what they’ve gathered so far: the screen is made by Samung, the actual touch sensor is made by Synaptics, the applications processor is made by Texas Instruments, and Broadcom supplies that chip that gives the N8 HDMI out capabilities. For comparison the Apple iPhone 4 BOM is $187.51, only $0.04 more, yet they’ve managed to squeeze in a much faster processor, much better screen, and the materials used are arguably of better quality. Isn’t Nokia supposed to get the best prices on everything since they order components by the millions of billions? If they’ve lost the 1 advantage they had, their size, then where’s the future of the company heading?
How much are you as a consumer willing to spend on a high end smartphone? Google earlier this year tried to introduce the phrase “superphone”, and as lame as it sounds, let’s define it broadly as devices that cost over 500 EUR. Will you be willing to pay twice that for a “mega-super-ultra-phone”? The best materials money can buy, the finest technology, a status symbol if there ever was one. Imagine what both Nokia and Apple could do if they could spend twice as much on components.
Dream.
[Via: The Nokia Blog]