iPhone boxes reveal budget model’s real name – The iPhone 5C

The name for Apple’s long-rumoured ‘affordable’ iPhone looks to have been revealed. Forget about ‘plastic iPhone’, ‘plastic iPhone’ and ‘iPhone Lite’, we’re now talking iPhone 5C.

Packaging for a device clearly labelled the iPhone 5C has been pictured and uploaded to the WeiPhone forums – a place where many phones and gadgets get revealed ahead of schedule – alluding to Apple already starting production of the supposedly more affordable model.

Previously we had known the phone as the iPhone Lite; a name which was noted in some rather official looking schematic design drawings. However, the image of a boxful of iPhone 5C boxes seems to suggest otherwise.

Not much can be drawn from a box load of plastic boxes, bar the name of course. If these boxes are real then it would also show that Apple is departing from its usual iPhone packaging and going with something more cheap and cheerful, which of course lines up with the overall idea of the phone itself, which is said to be manufactured from plastic and therefore lower in price than your usual iPhone.

As with anything in the tech rumour mill – and especially the Apple one, which tends to attract more hoaxes than any other brand or device – this could all turn out to be a fake. That being said, if the image isn’t legit then somebody somewhere has gone to an awful lot of trouble to manufacture and print what looks to be around 50 dummy boxes.

The phone is said to keep the same 4-inch screen size as Apple’s current iPhone 5 but will feature downgrades in the camera and build departments and possibly others, which will help Apple to make the device more affordable when compared to other iPhones in the range. The iPhone 5C is thought to be Apple’s long-awaited answer to the mid-range likes of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and now the HTC One Mini.