The word from mobiledia is that the Palm Pre smartphone cost $170 to produce, and is expected to command a price tag of around $200.

This assumption is based on research by iSuppli who found that Palm Pre costs where $137.83 for hardware, $9.58 for making and tests, and $22.61 for licensing and software.

It is expected Palm will ship the Palm Pre to Sprint for $300 and therefore expect Sprint to subsidise the Pre so it sells at $200. With this information in mind I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple were to push out the next Apple iPhone under the $200 mark and if so Palm and the Pre could well be in trouble