Is this the real iPhone 5

  Tired of rumors revolving around the next iPhone? No? Well, what we have here, folks, is another leaked photo of what is said to be the iPhone 5. Are we looking at the real deal, however? Let's take a closer look and try to find out for ourselves.

The insider who provided the shot claims that it has been taken “in the office of a French operator”, yet they only had a couple of minutes to act, which is why the image looks as poorly as it does. Nevertheless, despite the low quality of the images, it is quite apparent that the device runs iOS, or at least something that looks similar to Apple's mobile platform. Many of you would probably say that the photo has been manipulated, but after messing around with it for a while, we didn't spot any evidence showing that the image is a forgery. The only alteration to the image that we noticed is the pixelation over the hands holding the device, yet that has been probably added to hide the identity of the one taking the shot.

Something that bothers us is that the display of the device in the image appears to be no bigger than 3.5 inches, which goes against the plethora of rumors suggesting that the next iPhone model is getting a bigger screen. Furthermore, it seems like the front-facing camera has been placed awkwardly close to the earpiece, and there is simply too much space left out between the top edge of the screen and the top edge of the handset. On the other hand, the smartphone has a profile slim enough to be a true iDevice as it appears to be about as thin as the iPhone 4.

Although we cannot come up with a final verdict just yet, the device in the picture is more likely to be a Chinese knockoff made to look similar to the iPhone 4 rather than the next iPhone iteration. Of course, we might be wrong, but we will probably not know for sure until the iPhone 5 gets officially unveiled next month. Nevertheless, feel free to check the photo out for yourselves and tell us what you think in the comments below.