Now this is all about happy news and weird news rolled into one, the good news is that the Apple iPhone 3G is relatively cheap at only $199, but reports are showing that the phone only costs $173 to make, work that one out.

The iPhone 3G is cheap really when you think about it and many consumers are happy with the pricing of the new device but market researchers iSuppli seem to have found the answer to this $173 to make, $199 to buy scenario. iSuppli has reported that the iPhone 3G only costs $173 to make which is very strange indeed considering the 8GB version of this phone will only cost you $199 (£99 in UK), ok this is a great selling point for Apple which could mean major competitors finding it pretty hard to compete with such a low price. For example the $785 HTC Touch Diamond is obviously much more expensive for everyday consumers and the $855 Nokia N96 smartphone is expensive also, how can these firms compete against the iPhone 3G. Nokia and HTC will still sell by the millions we are not doubting that but it seems there is strong favour for the cheap iPhone.

iSuppli say that the iPhone 3G price is cheap because of the materials used to make it, and of course those providers who have to subsidize the handsets by giving Apple around $300 per iPhone, and before you question the quality the iPhone 3G is off top quality so no suffering when it comes to the quality, Apple are smart people (Well most of the time anyway) and they use the right components to do the job. Apple are pretty successful in giving us what we want considering if you look back on last year the iPhone version one cost $226 to make and that did not have 3G nor did it include GPS.

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