Alleged Chinese Galaxy S4 variant photos appear online

Chinese Galaxy S4?

The Samsung Galaxy S4 rumor mill has been churning in the run up to Thursdays big announcement event in New York City, but so far weve seen little to indicate what the upcoming handset might look like.

But today Chinese forum 52Samsung has posted what it says are images of a dual-SIM Galaxy S4 variant for China. The device in question carries the model number GT-i9502 and looks an awful lot like a Galaxy S3, with internals indicative of a flagship product. Black and white (or at least light grey) color variants are shown, and it seems the pattern on the back and front of the chassis has changed somewhat -- shots of the white and black versions show what looks like a grid pattern.

On the hardware side, shots from benchmarking app AnTuTu seem to reveal an Exynos 5410 (Exynos 5 Octa) CPU running at up to 1.8GHz with 2GB of RAM and a 1080p display. We also get a few glimpses of the phones UI itself, which appears to match the shots that allegedly made their way out from an AT&T Galaxy S4 a few days back. Lurking beneath this new TouchWiz is Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean.

Now, theres absolutely no guarantee that the Galaxy S4 will actually look like this. If you followed the Galaxy S3 launch youll remember that Samsung put out several pre-release versions of that phone, and in many instances used dummy cases to disguise its final design. Todays shots dont appear to show a dummy case, but thats not to say Samsung won't have several different Galaxy S4 prototype designs floating around.

So there you have it -- this may or may not be the Galaxy S4, but its definitely something. Well see if it matches up with the real thing at Samsungs event on Thursday evening.

Source: 52Samsung; via: SammyHub