Famous Plastic iPhone Back Panels Actually Designed For iPhone 5S

By now everybody should be familiar with the famous leaked “budget iPhone” back panels that have made and are continuing to make the rounds around the World Wide Web.

Some of you could also be aware of the fact that these are not actually official coversdesigned by Apple. Nope, these are just unofficial products manufactured by various Chinese companies. Why only some of you are aware of this (aside from our regular readers)? Because, from all the major online publications out there, only GSM Arena (by our knowledge) had the guts to actually call these things what they are: fake, cheap knock-offs. We guess that publishing leaks from shady sources is more appealing than admitting a screw-up. Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

In the first part of our investigation we were mentioning that the Chinese manufacturer we spoke with was referring to these colorful, plastic back panels as iPhone 5S parts. No mention of a plastic, cheap, affordable, budget iPhone, or iPhone Light / Lite for that matter.

If at first we didn’t know what to make of it, we now think there is a possibility that what we saw are actually alternative/unofficial iPhone 5S back panels. Why is that? Well, because we asked for dimensions, and this is the response we got:

Some of you might remember when the guys at Aple Insider have published some leaked iPhone Lite / Light and iPhone 5S schematics. Here they are:

As you can see, the dimensions of the plastic shells are very close to what the above schematics are claiming to be iPhone 5S’ dimensions.

The Mail We Received: 5.8 cm / 58 mm – 12.3 cm / 123 mm
Apple Insider published blueprints: 58.57 mm – 123.83 mm

This, along with the fact that the manufacturer called these “iPhone 5S back covers” make us think that what we’ve been seeing during the last couple of weeks are actually unofficial iPhone 5S back covers. What do you think?

Oh, and remember the leaked “budget iPhone buttons” that look like LEGOs? Unoffcial as well: