Motorola Milestone more pricey to make than Nexus One
Bill of Materials breakdown reveals all
Motorola’s Milestone and Google’s Nexus One are both Android 2.0 smartphones, but a Bill of Materials (BoM) breakdown has revealed that the Googlephone costs less to make.
Motorola's Milestone: more expensive parts than the Nexus One
The Milestone – reviewed here and called Droid in North America – has a total BoM of $187.75 (£115.37), market watcher iSuppli has discovered. Last week iSuppli said that the Nexus One’s BoM is $174.15 (£107.01).
Milestone’s more expensive production price-tag probably won’t result in a better user experience, though.
For example, Milestone’s 550MHz processor cost Motorola just $12.90. Google, on the other hand, splashed out $30.50 (£18.74) to secure its handset a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon.
Nexus One: price goes into better components?
Motorola bargained well for Milestone’s display components, though. Both handsets have the same 3.7in screen, but Motorola paid roughly $17, iSuppli said, while Google coughed up around $23.
Both phones are bundled with a Micro SD memory card, but iSuppli told Register Hardware that Motorola’s inclusion of a 16GB card – versus Google’s 4GB Micro SD - is what accounts for the majority of the price difference between the two rival handsets. That slide-out keyboard doesn't help either. ®
COMMENTS
Hardware cost isn't the only expense...
The production and overhead costs are probably at least 2x the cost of hardware. And then the companies are expected to make a profit as well...
Very Moore-ish
As time goes on, better components cost less.
The superior hardware of the Droid/Milestone cost less than those of the iThing 3GS.
And the Nexus One, which is better than the Droid, costs less than the Droid's parts.
Expect next year's superphone to cost less to build than this year's.
A couple of corrections
The Nexus One does not have the same screen as the Motorola Milestone -- the Milestone has an 854x480 pixel trans-reflective LCD screen, whereas the Nexus One has an 800x480 pixel active-matrix organic LED screen. It's not really surprising that this newer technology is more expensive.
Secondly, in response to Michael's comment, the Nexus One (if you remove the unnecessary mains charger) is $558.65 shipped to the UK, which is (at the current exchange rate) £341.85 before VAT, (possible) import duty and handling fee.
Unless you are lucky enough to be overlooked by customs, the expected total price for a Nexus One today is £341.85 + £59.82 VAT + DHL handling fee, bringing the total price to approximately £400. It is also unclear currently as to whether the Nexus One attracts duty or not (mobile phones do not, but devices with GPS do, at 6%). This could increase the final price to approximately £425.
So why do these devices cost so much?
I'm surprised by the bill of materials. Neither device is especially expensive so why the heck are they so ludicrously expensive to buy? The Motorola Milestone is 4-5x the price of the parts.
I can understand cash strapped Motorola jacking up the price, but surely Google want to stick their device into as many people's hands as possible? It's not like they'd be selling themselves short either since they could still lower the price, and still make a healthy profit.
Motorola Milestone has more pricier parts than Nexus One
However, if you compare the costs here in the UK, the Milestone is about £400 while the Nexus comes out at around £343 including shipping costs and VAT. Pretty interesting !
