Moto Q 'teardown' finds XScale inside

iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.) said it also found an XScale chip in a recent analysis of the Blackberry 8700c.

According to iSuppli, at a price tag as low as $200, the Motorola Q has set a new low point for smart-phone pricing. iSuppli estimates that the phone has a total materials and manufacturing cost of about $158.

The total value of all Q's components amounts to $150, according to iSuppli, which estimated that the phone carries an additional $8 in manufacturing costs per unit. This total of $158 excludes outlays beyond the production of the Q, including shipping, logistics, marketing and other channel expenditures, iSuppli noted.

According to the firm, the Q's low production cost is reflected in its aggressive pricing. Verizon Wireless, the exclusive seller of the Motorola Q, is offering the product for $199 with a two-year contract, iSuppli said, adding that it believes the phone's combination of low pricing and inexpensive design will be key assets for Motorola as it vies for market share against established rivals.

"Given the Q's price point, and Motorola's overall market leverage, this phone likely will succeed in reducing the pricing for smart phones overall—boosting acceptance among users who might flinch at the higher-than-$200 price point established by previous personal digital assistant/smart-phone products," said Andrew Rassweiler, teardown services manager and senior analyst for iSuppli, in a statement.

Under the hood, iSuppli's teardown found components from Intel, Texas Instruments Inc. , Broadcom Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., among others. iSuppli concluded that the Q is similar to other smart phones that the firm has analyzed previously.

Looking at the voice communications portion of the phone, the design revolves around a Qualcomm MSM6500 digital baseband chipset and a TI PTWL93017xxxx analog baseband chipset, iSuppli said. Qualcomm's MSM6500 is relatively new, but iSuppli has seen the TI chipset before in Motorola's V635 phone, the firm said. The Q's memory subsystem consists of two multi-chip modules: one from Intel that has a 256Mbit NOR-type flash memory and a 64Mbit Pseudo SRAM, and the other from M Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd. that has a 128Mbyte flash DiskOnChip, plus a 64Mbit 1.8-volt synchronous DRAM, according to iSuppli's analysis.

iSuppli believes Motorola has major expectations for the Q, the latest in the company's string of stylish phones, including the ultra-thin RAZR and SLVR. These phones, particularly the RAZR, have achieved massive sales volumes and have generated major notoriety for Motorola, helping it to solidify its position as the world's No. 2 mobile-phone maker, iSuppli said.

Motorola's prediction that it will ship more than 5 million Qs in 2006, including more than 3 million in the fourth quarter, is aggressive, according to iSuppli, which noted that Motorola is entering a market of limited size and with established competitors, the firm said.

The Q is dual-band CDMA, 1 x evolution-data optimized, Bluetooth-capable smart phone. It features dual stereo speakers, a 1.3-Megapixel digital camera with flash, a broad 2.4-inch TFT display and a 35-key QWERTY keyboard in a thin 0.45-inch body, iSuppli said. On the software side, the Q comes pre-installed with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, Pocket Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, the firm said.

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