While we have heard a number of rumors about the Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5, a rumor that surfaced the web recently suggest that the iPhone 5 would come up with a 4-inch screen to take on Android phones.
According to a well known technology website, MacRumors, a design document for the iPhone 5 has surfaced in late July and began to make its way to the third-party manufacturers, who apparently placed enough faith in its accuracy to begin making cases based on the design.
The new case designs released by MacRumors suggest that iPhone 5 is expected to feature a bigger screen as compared to the iPhone 4’s 3.5-inch display. According to the measurements taken by the MacRumors’s designer team, the iPhone 5 design may have dimensions of 4.33” x 2.36”, suggesting a shorter but only slightly wider design. In comparison, the iPhone 4 dimensions are 4.5” x 2.31”.
However the tech site also mentioned that the actual third-party cases that are circulating around the web are significantly longer and wider than what the designs in the document have suggested.
MacRumors’s team has ordered a third-party iPhone 5 case designs and performed a series of measurements on them. The team mentioned that the accurate measurements were difficult to achieve due to the open ends and overhangs on the sides of the case, they estimate the size of the phone at approximately 4.7” x 2.6” . They also mentioned that:
Measuring the expected thickness of the device is more challenging given uncertainty about exactly how the case snaps onto it along the sides, but the device certainly appears to be below .30″ at its thickest and tapering by approximately .065″ from top to bottom.The team also experimented by placing an iPhone 4 inside this iPhone 5 case which illustrated the increased size of the iPhone 5. The iPhone 4’s 3.5” screen measures approximately 1.95” in width (diagonally) within a total device width of 2.31”, leaving approx. 0.36” for margins. As compared to the above screenshot and iphone 4 dimensions, the iPhone 5 display would be approximately 2.24” wide, making the display approximately 4” diagonally. Its unlikely that Apple would make the margins of the iPhone 5 screen larger than on the iPhone 4. If this represents the final screen design, the iPhone 5 screen would have to be at least 4”.
Apple’s move to boost the screen-size comes at a time when Android manufacturers including Motorola, HTC and Samsung are releasing slimmer smartphones with bigger display screens.
Several Android phones are expected to release this fall along with the iPhone 5 which would sport a minimum of 4” display. As a result, if Apple needs to pose a strong competition against Android phones, it may have to increase its screen size especially when the technology giant is preparing for a bigger iPhone market in this second half of the year.
