Late last month iSuppli, the authority on gadget teardowns, released a virtual teardown estimate that the 8GB iPhone 3G cost US$173 to manufacture–only a hair away from the figure of US$174.33 they have arrived at as their official estimate. This figure does not include additional costs like software development, shipping and distribution, packaging and miscellaneous accessories included with each phone. However, it does represent nearly a US$52 drop over the cost of the original 8GB iPhone. [iSuppli]
Going a few steps further than we did, iFixit has fully disassembled the MacBook Air. Along the way, they have found quite a few curious findings about its components, from the actual size and weight of the screen to the number of screws used to hold everything together:
newVideoPlayer("macbookteardown.flv", 475, 286,"");As soon as we got our MacBook Air, we couldn’t help but want to tear it down to its innards. We wanted to see what made up this beautiful machine, so we grabbed our #00 phillips screwdriver and had at it. Want to know what we found? The sexiest and simplest notebook has the sexiest and simplest construction (you’ll be surprised at how easy the battery comes out). Not only was this thin thing amazingly easy to dissemble, it was even gorgeous on the inside. Here are the details and, more importantly, pictures.
