China jumps the gun, makes iPhone 5 ready for pre-order

Oh China, why sneak around behind Apple’s back? This website in China has begun accept pre-orders for the iPhone 5.

Taobao which is one of China’s biggest ecommerce sites, lists the iPhone 5 at a price of 5088 (US$798) to 6688 yuan (US$1049). The pictures are also pretty priceless, as each one is a mock-up of what the iPhone 5 may look like.

The sellers of the iPhone 5 say that the product will land in Hong Kong first, then will be brought over to China. Apple will never comment on rumour or speculation, especially a fairly fake looking iPhone 5 on a Chinese version of Ebay.

Taobao says that “Demand is high,” and over a dozen orders have already been placed for the iPhone 5.

The tech specs listed for the iPhone 5 also seem a mite, generous. Display supports “2160p” which is utter craziness. Wireless support is listed, with WCDMA，GSM，CDMA2000，WiMAX, GSM, GPRS，CDMA 1X and EVDO rev.A in the mix. Seems as if the seller simply found every possible wireless technology and added it to a list.

iOS 6 is there, with a GTX690 SLI GPU listed. First off, the GTX690 SLI is a proper PC video card, so we don’t know how it’s going to cram into the iPhone 5. Finally, the 5000mAh battery life makes us laugh.

Alibaba.com — the business-to-consumer platform for Alibaba group — has been correct before when it released cases for the iPad 2, so it’s not impossible that Taobao’s right now. Just highly unlikely.

It seems to me that, either way, it is attempting to scam desperate people too impatient to wait for the actual release of the iPhone 5. It is asking for deposits if you are not willing to pay the full price.

On top of this, its disclaimer states that no responsibility is taken, whether the product is authentic or not.