Why would it necessarily be cheaper? After all Apple has both economy of scale and the capacity to buy up the entire manufacturing run of many of the components. They <i>should</i> be able to assemble a system as tightly integrated as a Mac much cheaper than somebody could go out and buy all the parts for.<p>A better example might be the cost delta between buying a car from the manufacturer and buying all the parts to make the same car separately and putting it together. The direct from manufacturer car will be far cheaper.