Low-cost iPhone seemingly confirmed as plastic-bodied and not yet in mass production from Pegatron working conditions report

Thereporton working conditions at Chinese iPhone manufacturer Pegatron appr to confirm that thelow-cost iPhonedoes indeed exist, is plastic and is not yet in mass production.The introduction to thereport(PDF), which provides a background to Pegatron, contains this statement:Its assembled products include iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, and low-priced plastic iA day-in-the-life report on page 27 of the report states:Today’s work is to paste protective on the iPhone’s plastic back cover to prevent it from being scratched on assembly lines …
The report goes on to say:The new cell phone has not yet been put into mass production, so quantity is not as important. This makes our job more slow paced than in departments that have begun mass production schedules.Whilethenumerousphotosand evenhad made it pretty certain the rumors were true, there always remains the possibility that we were actually looking at knock-offs crted by third-party companies based on nothing more than their belief about what the rl thing might look like. The more rumored casings that appred, the more convincing the rumor and the more incentive to make copies – so such things can often become self-perpetuating.But this report does add a grt dl of weight.China Labor Watchis a respected non-profit that has been operating for 13 yrs, with s in New York as well as China. Day-in-the-life pieces are often aggregated descriptions based on interviews with a of different workers, rather than direct quotes from a single individual, but the “today’s work is to paste protective on the iPhone’s plastic back cover” is pretty specific. Coupled to the background quote, we tend to believe that the phone (perhaps to becalled the 5C) is indeed plastic.Pegatron’s Chairman, TH Tung, last month appred to have confirmed that the phone will be amid-marketone. Japanese siteMacotakarareports :Pegatronheld the eral Meeting of Shareholders and Chairman TH Tung said “The price is fairly high” about low-priced iPhone.