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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Amazon Kindle 2 Costs $185.49 to Build

Per iSuppli the Amazon Kindle 2 ebook reader costs 185.49 in materials and manufacturing costs. The direct material cost, consisting of all parts used to make the product, amounts to $176.83. When adding in the conversion costs—i.e., manufacturing expenses and the battery—the total rises to $185.49. Not included in this analysis are costs above and beyond the material manufacturing of the core device itself—i.e., the cost of intellectual property, royalties and licensing fees; those not already included into the per component price—software, software loading and test, shipping, logistics marketing; and other channel costs.

The combined manufacturing and materials costs represent 51 percent of the Kindle 2’s $359 retail price.

1 Million Google Android Phones sold by T-Mobile

From TG Daily -

T-Mobile, the US's fourth largest wireless network operator with 32.1 million customers, has reported that it has sold one million Google Android smartphones since it started selling them last October 2008. The smartphone now accounts for almost two thirds of all of the 3G devices available on the T-Mobile network.

In addition, per AdMob, the Android OS now accounts for 6% for the entire smartphone market in the US, behind Windows Mobile (11%), Blackberry OS (22%) and the iPhone (50%).

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Symbian on Intel’s Atom




In what could be considered a reaction to the various Android ports popping up, the Symbian blog is reporting the SOSCO (S60 on Symbian Customer Operations) team has successfully ported the Symbian operating system over to an off the shelf Atom based Intel motherboard.

This development marks an interesting turn in the emergence of netbooks, which are predominantly Atom-based, as the fastest growing computer segments. With non-Intel CPUs now being used in the cheaper models and Linux a feasible alternative for the O.S., netbooks represent the latest and most feasible opportunity for the market to break the decades old Wintel duopoly. The entries of Android and (now possibly) Symbian promise to make the future doubly exciting.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

CUBE B52HD MP4 Player, a poor man’s iPod Touch




From PMP Today -

The Cube B52HD is a 499 yuan (USD73) iPod clone that has the following features:

* 8G memory
* Video support: RM, RMVB, MPEG, AVI, FLV
* Audio: MP3, WMA, WAV, APE, FLAC, Ogg
* TV out
* memory expansion slot
* only 7.59mm thick
* 5-inch screen 480 x 272*

*Apparently, the B52HD is not a real HD player as it only supports high-definition (1280 x 720) when you use the TV out function on a higher res screen.