Google Nexus 7 costs $152 to build

Google’s Nexus 7 tablet may be all about an attempt to compete with Apple’s incredibly popular iPad, but when you crack it open it sure looks an awful lot like Amazon’s Kindle Fire inside.

That’s the impression that analysts at the research house IHS iSuppli got when they did just that: They took a Nexus 7 apart in order to see what components are inside and to estimate what each of them costs. The early verdict, shared exclusively with AllThingsD, is that the low-end eight gigabyte model of the Nexus 7, which sells for $199, costs $151.75 to build.

The higher-end 16GB model, which sells for $249, costs $159.25, the difference being the cost of memory chips inside.