AT&T's BlackBerry Bold can now be bought free of contract, from Best Buy, for $659.99. This must be great news for lots of users in the US who might not want to wait until November 4, when AT&T will begin to sell RIM's new smartphone on contract.
A question rises, though: is BlackBerry Bold worth $659.99?
Compared to other smartphones currently on the market, the answer seems to be "yes". Especially since the Bold is packed with lots and lots of features, some of them included for the first time in a BlackBerry handset.
Still, according to iSuppli, which made a teardown analysis of the smartphone, the cost of producing one BlackBerry Bold device is of $169.41. This includes the Bill of Materials (BOM) cost, which is of $158.16, and the manufacturing cost of only $11.25.
iSuppli says that the most expensive "part" of the Bold is its 624MHz Marvell 88CP930M-BGR1 processor, which costs $34.34. Also, the smartphone's 2.65-inch display, made by Samsung, costs $16, while the Texas Instruments WLAN Wi-Fi chip is valued at $4.84.
Of course, RIM won't get the whole difference (of around $490) between the production cost ($169.41) and the retail price ($659.99) of BlackBerry Bold. Still, the Canadian company will surely make big profits thanks to the Bold.
