Palm Pre's Costliest Component Is Its DisplayPalm Pre's Costliest Component Is Its Display

iSuppli is at it again. This time the company has broken down the new Palm Pre. According to its breakdown, the touch display cost $39.50, by far the most expensive piece of the device.According to the Wall Street Journal, the Low-Temperature Polysilicon LCD display touch screen module, which is made by Sony, cost $39.50 per Palm Pre. That's 20% of the final cost to end-users ($400).

Other component makers include Qualcomm, Samsung, and Texas Instruments (OMAP3430 applications and media processor, and TWL5030B dedicated power management/audio codec device) Together, these parts cost $19.37.

Andrew Rassweiler says of the Pre's guts, "With the Pre, Palm has made some surprising choices not only in the phone's features, but also in its design and component selection."

Rassweiler is referring specifically to two gigabits of SDRAM inside the Pre, which is far more than what other devices use.

The Pre gets its NAND flash memory chips from Samsung. A total cost of parts was not available.