The iPhone, of course, is more than the sum of its parts, but thecost of individual components adds up--to $178.96, to be exact.

A new analysis by iSuppli details the cost of the iPhone 3GS and the motley collection of chips inside.

The entry-level (16GB) version of the iPhone 3GS carries a BOM (billof materials) cost of $172.46 and a manufacturing expense of $6.50, fora total of $178.96, said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principalanalyst, teardown services, for iSuppli, in a statement.

Service providers are paying more for the low-end iPhone 3G S thanthe original iPhone 3G, according to Rassweiler. "Although the retailprice of the 16GB iPhone 3GS is $199, the same as for the 8GB versionof the original iPhone 3G, the actual price of the phone paid by theservice provider is considerably higher, reflecting the common wirelessindustry practice of subsidizing the upfront cost of a mobile phone andthen making a profit on subscriptions," he said.

And what are the major cost drivers? The 16GB flash memory chip isthe priciest at $24--and reflects the rising cost of flash chips due tosupply constraints, according to iSuppli. This part is also availablefrom Samsung. So there could be some second-sourcing (sourcing the partfrom a second chip supplier) in the future.

The next rung in the cost ladder is the 3.5-inch display module and touch-screen assembly, at $19.95 and $16, respectively.

Below this, is the main Samsung applications processor. Priced at$14.46, it is the fourth most costly component in the iPhone 3GS. As reported earlier, the new ARM-based Samsung processor(Apple branded, by the way) plays a key role in the 3G S' improvedperformance. In the 3GS, the processor runs at 600MHz version, in the3G at only 400MHz.

Beyond faster performance, the iPhone 3GS adds video capture, anautofocus 3-megapixel camera--compared with 2 megapixels before--and abuilt-in digital compass.

Aside from these extras (and the new processor), the 3GS hardwarefeature set (that user sees) is not much different from that of the 3G,iSuppli said.

"From a component and design perspective, there's also a great dealof similarity between the 3G and the 3GS. By leveraging thiscommonality to optimize materials costs, and taking advantage of priceerosion in the electronic component marketplace, Apple can provide ahigher-performing product with more memory and features at only aslightly higher materials and manufacturing cost," Rassweiler said.

And how did other chip suppliers do beyond Toshiba and Samsung?Broadcom is supplying a single-chip Bluetooth/FM/WLAN device, costing$5.95. Look closely, and squeezed in between the Bluetooth and WLAN(wireless local area network) is an FM radio feature. The iPhone 3GSdoes not list an FM radio as one its features, but that's part of thefeature set of the Broadcom chip. In this case, it may be simplydisabled.

AKM provides an electronic compass and STMicroelectronics, theaccelerometer, both of which are 3-axis devices. The STMicroelectronicspart allows the 3G S to determine device orientation or inclination,while the AKM sensor detects device movement relative to magneticnorth, supporting the 3GS' capability to reorient a map displayed onthe screen to correspond with the direction the user is facing,according to iSuppli.

Infineon Technologies AG is the supplier of the phone's importantbaseband chip, which accounts for $13 of the 3GS component costs.

Here it is in living color: the HTC Hero/Sense UI walk-through.This is a real phone running the actual software and we delve into someof the most important features including social media integration andthe browser experience.

The most interesting thing is that all of thecontact/Facebook/Twitter interaction is automatic. You import yourlogin info and it just shows up without fuss or muss. There is none ofthe Palm Pre’s linked-list creation. This is a small improvement butmakes a world of difference in most cases. The Facebook info updatesonce every two hours so when profile pictures or contact info isupdated online, the phone updates itself automatically.

eyeball tests

page rendering/boot time tests

Medialets

released numbers

In Medialets test, they are specifically testing WebKit JavaScript performance. This makes sense since all these devices have a WebKit-based browser. WebKit offers a JavaScript test suite, SunSpider, which is used to determine the results. And just to make clear how fast the iPhone 3GS’ JavaScript speed is, Medialets set a 2GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook as the baseline.

Compared to the MacBook, the iPhone 3G running the iPhone OS 2.2.1 software had JavaScript performance that was 96 times worse. Meanwhile, an iPhone 3G running the iPhone 3.0 software was on 36 times worse. A T-Mobile G1 running the new Android 1.5 “Cupcake” software was 67 times worse than the baseline. And the Palm Pre was 36 times worse, equalling the iPhone 3G running the 3.0 software. So how did the iPhone 3GS do? It’s performance was only 12 times worse that of the MacBook — three times better than the Pre.

That’s pretty incredible when you think about it. Sure, this is only a JavaScript test, and hardly indicative of everything you can do on the device, but JavaScript is an integral part of the web, and sites continue to use it more and more as websites get more robust. And the rate of improvement that the iPhone is seeing in performance in that regards means that soon we could see a mobile device that handles the web just as fast as an actual computer.