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Possible iPhone 5 chassis appears on video

New video shows a unibody metal chassis large enough to support a 4-inch screen.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

A video showing a metal chassis purporting to belong to the upcoming iPhone 5 has emerged, backing up some of the design changes previously rumored.

Parts reseller ETradeSupply has posted a video of the new chassis showing what could be quite a radical redesign of the iPhone.

Some of the redesign highlights include:

  • Unibody metal chassis, which to me looks and sounds like it might be made from Liquidmetal alloy;
  • Width appears unchanged;
  • Longer body, suggesting a 4-inch screen;
  • Substantially thinner design;
  • Smaller SIM tray;
  • Headphone jack moved to the bottom;
  • Smaller dock connector;
  • Larger speaker grill;
  • The on/off switch, volume control and mute switch seem to be similar to those found on the iPhone 4 and 4S.

One thing that I can't see on that new chassis is a hole for the secondary microphone used for wind and noise-cancellation. On the iPhone 4 and 4S, it is in the top next to the headphone socket.

If this is a genuine part -- bear in mind that I'm not making any assertions that it is -- then Apple has just made it much harder to get at the battery on the forthcoming iPhone. Replacing that would require removing the screen just as it did with the earlier models, but the thinner screens used today -- along with copious amounts of adhesive -- mean that it's a lot easier to break the screen.

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