The good folks at iSuppli took it upon themselves to rip apart the Amazon Kindle 2. Great, right? What’s not great is knowing how much of a premium you’re paying for the device; ignorance is bliss here. The Kindle 2, for which Amazon wants $359, costs approximately $185 to build. That is, when you take all the Kindle’s parts and add them together, you get a total of $185. So where does the extra $174 come from?
Well, assuming Amazon is in the business of making monkey money (monkey’s funnier, in my defense), some of that “left over” money is profit. Then you’d need to consider all the money Amazon poured into the Kindle 2’s development: designing it, whipping up the software, marketing it, etc. You gotta spend money to make money, Lou.
Inside the Kindle 2 you’ll find memory chips from Samsung; wireless data modules from Novatel Wireless; an ARM controller chip; and the display was developed by eInk, but put together by a Taiwanese company.
This was just like Inside Baseball, but without the silly background music.
Analysis like “zomg! kindle costs only $185 to build!” is what I expect from lesser blogs, and lesser bloggers.
I didn’t know that amazon made monkeys
“assuming Amazon is in the business of making monkey”
Price is a function of supply and demand, not cost plus markup.
Um, you ever think that some of the money has to go to their agreement with Sprint?? Let’s think about it for a minute. A device that has access to a cellular network without a monthly fee… Last time I checked, Sprint wasn’t in the business of just giving shit away.
hey if your looking to buy an over priced kindle dont forget pick up one of those $22 ipods that goes for $79. Amazon should just give justin long a whole bunch of bags filled with money and have him make the kindle super cool too.
oh my gosh, a multimillion dollar (billion yet?) is looking for ways to make money… WHOA!!!! groundbreaking!