An IHS iSuppli teardown analysis of the much-hyped Motorola Xoom has revealed that Motorola’s dual-core chip and two cameras for the tablet end up making it more expensive to build than the Apple iPad.

At an estimated materials’ cost of $360, the Xoom comes out to be $40 more than the comparable 32GB iPad 3G which costs $320 to build – the key reason being that the iPad has a single-core chip and no cameras.

However, the retail difference between the Xoom and the iPad is $70 – with the Xoom, without a Verizon two-year contract, selling for $799.99; while the equivalent iPad model sells for $729.

Since the processor and camera differences between the two tablets increasing the Xoom’s materials cost by $24, the difference in the Motorola tablet’s retail cost with a comparable Apple tablet is, hence, cut down to only a $46 premium.

With the iSuppli teardown also finding that iPad costs were comparatively lower in every subcomponent except for the baseband/radio frequency/power amplifier section, iSuppli analysts Wane Lam noted: “Of all the iPad killers analyzed by the IHS iSuppli teardown team, the Xoom best approximates the cost/performance standard set by Apple.”

Lam further elaborated that iSuppli’s physical dissection of the Xoom clearly revealed that Motorola “closely lined up the Xoom's components with that of the iPad's, especially where it counts: in the touchscreen, the display and the cellular radio.”