Next iPhone to be a bigger upgrade than widely expected, says analyst

Hey, another day, another analyst chimes in on the next iPhone! This time it is our buddy Shaw Wu, who has had some scores in the past predicting the Verizon iPhone, calling some BlackBerry PlayBook teething problems, and such.

His claim this time, however, is that the next handset from Apple, dubbed iPhone 5, will actually be a "bigger update than expected". He is no doubt referring to the initial rumors that the device will be a modest upgrade over the iPhone 4, with faster dual-core chipset, 8MP camera, and chassis material other than glass, but the same overall design.

For all it's worth, these early rumors sound exactly like the recently leaked claims from Vietnam that there is a low-end iPhone 4S prototype by Apple, which looks like the current crop, but the shell is made of plastic to keep costs down, only the internals might have been upgraded with a faster processor.

Shaw Wu says that the premium iPhone 5 will be lighter, thinner, and with a larger display than the iPhone 4. His supply chain sources also confirmed the faster A5 chipset, and once again reiterated that for 4G LTE we will have to wait the next iPhone editions, due to the fact that LTE radios are battery hogs for now, and such networks are not widespread.

All of these, however, we have heard in one form or another, and they make sense even without an analyst confirmation. Lo and behold, if come the first week of September a thinner, lighter iPhone of the same size with a tapered back, a 4" display with very thin frame which keeps the Retina Display 300ppi + resolution, an A5 dual-core processor and an 8MP camera is announced, the only ones surprised will be those who never read anything about the next Apple handset in the past 9 months or so. Actually, something else will be really surprising, like a cheaper sidekick dubbed the iPhone 4S, but the analyst is mum on the matter.

via BGR