14 DAY TRIAL // As it tends to happen with tablets, analysts looked to see just how much it cost to make one of these things compared to the actual selling price, with HP's TouchPad, this once, being the one to fall under iSuppli's scrutiny.
Having been unleashed just recently, the media tablet known as HP TouchPad has, naturally, been put through the magnifying glass treatment, so to speak.
Reviewers have already put it through its paces, finding both strong and weak points, while others have, apparently, dismantled its physical shell to look on the inside.
It was, thus, discovered that there are few similarities between the build of the TouchPad and the Apple iPad.
While the LG IPS display of 9.7-inch might just be identical, the same cannot be said about the processing platform (a Snapdragon versus Apple's A5) although, true enough, both processors lack baseband components, possibly to allow the possibility of adding 3G or 4G capabilities in the future.
“This appears to be a Snapdragon derivative without the baseband functions that would normally be seen on a Snapdragon,” said Andrew Rassweiler, iSuppli’s senior director for teardowns.
Coupled with the NAND Flash memory of 16 GB or 32 GB, as well as all other parts (display and touch controllers, etc.), this all leads to a manufacturing cost of $306.65 for the 16 GB model and $328.65 for the 32 GB TouchPad (the selling prices are $499 and $599, respectively).
“We noticed there’s a gyroscope chip and an accelerometer, but we couldn’t find any GPS chips,” added Rassweiler. “Plus when we looked at the design we noticed there seems to be a lot of breathing room inside to add additional parts without having to change the design.”
It becomes apparent that, though the TouchPad's thick frame (compared to the iPad) could be slimmed down, HP chose, instead, the possibility of adding new features as time went by, so as to not have to revise everything too often.