November 13, 2008 by Matt Thomas
It would appear that the T-Mobile G1 has suffered a slight PR hit. Despite retailing at twice the price of the basic model iPhone, ($399 as opposed to $199) DowJones, CNN, and iSuppli have uncovered the shocking fact that the G1 is actually 10 per cent cheaper to make.
This all begs the question, why do T-Mobile feel they can charge so much for the phone? Many have pointed to the three megapixel camera that the G1 boasts as well as the keypad, though iphone users can easily counter that by pointing out the huge dearth of internal memory in the G1 has compared to the iPhone (1GB removable as opposed to 16GB internal).
Some of it is likely to be novelty factor. Remember, the GI has been on the market for not even two months. The Android operating system will also have something to do with it, apple didn’t have to write a new system from scratch for the iPhone and maybe some of those costs are being passed on to T-Mobile by Google. Either way, like all electronics, I’d expect the price of the G1 to eventually fall bringing it more in line with the iPhone.
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