The iPad Costs Something Like $260 to Build

The traditional iSuppli component breakdowns that attempt to put a neat little number on what a product actually costs to build appeal to a primal part of us, the part of us that wants to know, "Did I get screwed?"

"How much is a company making off of me? Was I a sucker?" It's a clever gambit. Because everybody wants to know. You can't help it.

I's a tricky thing, though, to finger how many dollars were poured into, for instance, each and every iPad out there. Even if you don't want to count research and development, marketing, and of all the indirect cost that goes into a product, what Apple pays for components might be different than what iSuppli estimates, as does what it costs to put together.

But whatever, we just want to see the numbers. Here's the highlights of what iSuppli says went into the iPad:

• $95 touchscreen display (multitouch is pricey)
• $26.80 processor built by Samsung
• $29.50 16GB memory; $59 32GB memory; $118 64GB memory
• $10.50 aluminum back

It comes to a total of $259.60 in guts for the 16GB model, $289.10 in the 32GB model and $348.10 in the 64GB model. Okay! That was fun. Do you feel properly infuriated now? [BusinessWeek]