As we approach the rumored September or October launch date for the following batch of iPhones, the web’s been spiced up with photos of alleged parts for an “N94″ iPhone prototype. We’ve been rather skeptical about them until the above photos landed in our inbox, courtesy of our friends from uBreakiFix. a short while back we’d already heard from our other sources that the N94 is decided to be a less expensive version of the present iPhone 4 (probably the 8GB iPhone 4 mentioned by Reuters last week), which might explain why a majority of these components and cables look super familiar. The one notable difference this is the funny dot right next to the sensor location above the earpiece — the dotted pattern is awfully similar to that utilized by the microphone and the webcam LED indicator on Mac computers, but obviously the latter is much more likely the case here.
That said, do recollect that consistent with the mark along the ground of this part, we’re apparently taking a look at an “EVT1″ (Engineering Verification Test) piece from March 3rd 2011 (making it about three months older than the white N94 back covers that made the rounds last week, assuming they’re legit). Additionally, when our sources last checked around June and July, the N94 had yet to hit the DVT stage, so it’s hard to choose whether these parts will remain a similar within the final design, or whether the N94 can even make it to the production line in any respect.
Nonetheless, our sources mentioned that an elusive N97 device — previously reported by the Wall Street Journal as a tiny iPhone — had already reached “DVT” (Design Verification Test) stage back in June, though there’s little information regarding it as opposed to that it has been tested with various cellular technologies (though stricken by some bugs involving switching between specific frequencies back then), plus it could actually sport a camera module supplied by Sony, which was semi-confirmed by Howard Stringer himself back in April. Regardless of the N97 finally ends up being, hopefully we’ll have something a minimum of as slim as our little souvenir from Beijing .
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