Palm Pre News: the cost to release

It is no secret that cell phone makers make a huge profit when it comes to selling their handsets, and the upcoming Palm Pre is no different. It has been estimated that the new webOS phone costs about $170 to build, and it is expected that Sprint will sell the phone for at least $300.

iSuppli have taken a close look at the components inside the Palm Pre, which is how they came up with the costs. Reuters have decided to breakdown the costs for you, the hardware comes to $137.83, manufacturing and tests, $9.58, software and licensing $22.61.

The final $170 figure does not include any shipping costs. If these figures are correct, then Palm looks set to make a nice profit from each Pre handset sold. When Palm sells the phone to Sprint, they look set to make at least 46 percent profit.