The new iPad can’t play Crysis, its also practically useless for productivity tasks, but ohhh did we mention it’s really shinny? Regardless of what you think of the iPad, or tablets in general, there is no denying Apple is doing a great job of exploiting the trend. Annual refreshes have added more horsepower and features while holding the line on price, but are the same margin’s possible with a display that rivals most 24-inch desktop panels?
In short no, but they are still making a killing. Hit the jump for all the gory details.
The bill of material estimates from IHS iSuppli peg the build cost of a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 at $245.10, while the new iPad that replaces it tallies up to $316.05. The biggest cost differences is the display which costs about $30 more per device, along with battery that doubled in size adding $9.30 to the build cost. A $316.05 build cost sounds plenty reasonable with a $499 end user price considering iOS development isn’t included in the estimate, and at the end of the day a profit must be made, however 64GB iPad’s are a totally different story. A 64GB iPad with 4G costs $408.70 to build, and they rake in $829 per device sold.
The best value for your dollar appears to be the 16GB versions, so if you’d rather put as little as possible into Apple’s $100 billion war chest that’s the way to go. The chart below gives you a full breakdown.