A few days ago – or perhaps it was yesterday, in any case – speculations emerged that Apple has a ton of flexibility on retail price when it comes to the iPad.  Something to do with if people don’t buy it or following suit of iPhone with the $200 price drop during initial launch.  Anyway, iSuppli has gone on record and estimated the cost of to build Apple’s iPad: $229.35 for the 16GB.  And things only get better for the company once you get into the 3G models.  Check the break down above, but the last two lines are what you’ll wanna pay attention to. Course, keep in mind that these are estimates and no one really knows the cost until they strip the actual machine apart.

Of note, this is the cost Arrington and co were going for when developing the Crunchpad.

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