Richard Lai

So something funny happened earlier this evening: I went over to the Sin Tak mobile phone shopping mall (in Mongkok, Hong Kong) to pick up a LunaTik, and when I saw a shop showing off some white iPhone 4 parts on the shelf, I decided to pop over and ask for a price.

Alas, even though the back covers looked convincing, the front ones were definitely fake. As you’ve probably seen in our various white iPhone 4 articles on Engadget, the real front covers have silver foil over the proximity sensor (the bit above the earpiece, but not visible on the black version). Well guess what? The dude thought I was crazy when I questioned him.

He said to me, “If the white iPhone 4’s proximity sensor does have silver over it, I’ll give my shop to you.”

I literally LOLed, which was probably what ticked him off — I guess people don’t usually challenge these guys because they see these shopkeepers being at the forefront of the mobile industry in Hong Kong.

“I’ve been running this shop for years. I know my stuff. I know where I source my parts from: Foxconn. We do a group buy with other shops here, too.” Oh dear.

The man promptly stormed off to grab a white iPhone 4 box, thinking that the product shot would be convincing enough. But of course, that actually also shows a silver proximity sensor; except due to the poor photocopy quality, the guy was convinced that those were just black dots, not silver. That said, I did spot a better version just down the corridor, but even that wouldn’t have been of much help for this delusional man.

I then asked him what about the first batch of white parts that had the silver foil, and his response was that those were just the KIRFers trying to make things pretty but they didn’t work. OK, seriously, someone please just force this man look at all the iPhone 4 launch photos and videos — the silver foil is clearly there!

My hands were itching to reach into my pocket (not that I actually wanted to own his shop in the smoky building), but I figured: a) he’d just make up an excuse saying some shanzhai factory managed to get some foil that works, or b) he’d smash my phone into pieces with rage. So I asked what if I could prove him wrong with a phone that sports a silver sensor, and yes, a) was his answer. Amazingly, he still wanted to butter me into his HK$1,500 deal. As soon as he turned around to another customer, I quietly left, knowing that our conversation had already drawn too much attention.

Honestly, all I wanted to do was to straighten this guy up, but there was no way he would’ve accepted the fact: had he admitted that he did get conned by his Shenzhen sources, he would’ve also dragged the other shops into the pond with him; on the other hand, maybe they do know these are high quality fakes, but are playing dumb. I think the former is more likely to be the case, and there’s no way to truly verify this unless we can track down the absolute source of the parts. I’ve personally been conned by the same seller who sold me genuine parts at first, but like many Hong Kong sellers, he also had to look around Futian, Shenzhen first, so chances are he was also a victim.

Anyhow, here’s my advice if you want to get yourself a white iPhone 4: either wait for the real deal (February 27th?), or use my recent white iPhone 4 feature as a reference when you visit Shenzhen. Also, feel free to avoid the corner shop next to G-World on the first floor in Sin Tak.

Update: I forgot to mention that the silly wabit believes that the white iPhone 4 will only be heading to Verizon. He also mentioned some other bullshit that I can’t remember, which is probably for the best.