Samsung Galaxy S8 costs more but should be less than last year’s S7

Aside from stress tests, IFixit teardown, comparisons, and reviews, we always look forward to that teardown by research firm IHS because it tells us how much the Samsung Galaxy S8 really costs. The phone starts at $720 for the 64GB models and can go high up to $850. This is really more expensive than the S7 which started at $669 last year.

The IHS Markit’s analysis of the Galaxy S8 has revealed the phone costs around $301.60. It goes up to 307.50 once the manufacturing costs are included–higher than the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.

Inside the Galaxy S8, you will see a 10-nanometer (nm) system-on-chip, CAT-16 LTE modem, radio, Snapdragon 835 (US and China) or Exynos 8895 for the international version. According to IHS Markit, the CAT-16 LTE radio can handle three carriers up to 20 megahertz each. It can reach 1Gbps, making Gigabit LTE as the highest standard in 2017 flagship phone as per one analyst. It will still depend on the mobile carrier so hope and pray tell there’s no throttling or limits set.

The teardown confirms most of the items we already know like a 5.8-inch AMOLED screen, 2960 x 1440 pixel resolution, 18.5:9 aspect ratio, improved haptic engine, 4GB RAM, and 64GB internal storage. The increase in the S8’s price could be because of the bigger built-in storage that is obviously more expensive.

The battery is same as the Galaxy S7 at only 3000mAh battery which we’re assuming costs slightly lower now. There’s no dual-camera system on the Galaxy S8 as the camera module is the same as last year’s S7. If the total cost of production is only around $300 and the starting price is $720 then we can say Samsung profits more or less $400 from each Galaxy S8.

Note that this teardown is only for the Galaxy S8. There’s no similar analysis yet for the bigger and more expensive Galaxy S8 Plus.