I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for photos and video of gadgets being torn apart to see what they look like on the inside. Typically, when we’re looking at a teardown its the geeks over at iFixit. In fact, not too long ago they tore apart a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet. Today we are talking about a different sort of “teardown” of the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
I use the term “teardown” loosely, because the guys over at IHS iSuppli didn’t actually have an S4 to rip apart yet – they did it virtually. The company relied on its Mobile Handset Cost Model Service to figure out a bill of materials for constructing the smartphone. According to the company, they estimate the phone costs Samsung $244(USD), including an $8.50 manufacturing charge to build the S4. That cost is significantly more than the S3 from last year.
The increase in cost is blamed on the high-end parts that are expected to be used in the S4. The bill of goods estimates that the 5-inch 108p HD screen and its touch hardware costs $75 alone. The processor is estimated to cost $30 while the user interface and sensor subsystem adds $16. The LTE Version of the S4 is estimated to be cheaper to build than the HSPA+ version, but that’s mostly because it sports a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon instead of the eight-core Exynos Octa processor. The total bill of materials for the LTE version is $233.
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