Fresh Leak Hints iPhone 6 Price and Release Date; 4.7-Inches iPhone 6 Sapphire Display Scratched in Test; New Spigen Cases Out

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A recent leak from China shows an iPhone 6 promotional flyer with release date and pricing details of the upcoming iPhone 6. Furthermore, new scratch test reveals that Sapphire crystal display might not be part of the 4.7-inches iPhone 6 model. In addition, four interesting iPhone 6 cases from Spigen reveal the availability date.

Price and Release Date

Based on the leaked flyer, the 4.7-inches iPhone 6 variant is priced at 5,288 RMB that roughly translates to US$851 and AU$907. While the 5.5-inches iPhone 6 model will cost 6,288 RMB, which roughly translates to US$1,012 and AU$1,078 (the values are changed according to today's price), according to GSMInsider via Phone Arena.

Apple is expected to make an announcement of the upcoming iPhone 6 prior to its release date. Also if Sept. 16 is the iPhone 6 release date in China, there is a good possibility that few other countries will also share the same release date.

iPhone 6 Cases from Spigen

Spigen, a U.S. based case maker has listed several iPhone 6 cases in Amazon. As per the listing, the case can be pre-ordered at this point, but the availability date is set to Sept. 30. The available colours point to a transparent case, satin silver, smooth black and a gun metal case. Notably, Spigen has added cases only for 4.7-inches iPhone 6 variant.

Interested readers should check out the cases from Amazon.

In-Depth Scratch Test

In addition to the subtle scratch test conducted by Marques Brownlee, we now have a more stringent scratch test carried out by the same user.

This time, Marques tested for Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Apparently, this is a test to figure out the mineral hardness of the device in a scale of 1 to 10. Apple iPhone 5S' Gorilla Glass protected display falls under a rating of 6.8. The iPhone 6, on the other hand, scored a whopping 9.0 in the rating, says MacRumors.

According to the user, a total of two sandpapers were used for the mineral hardness testing. This includes garnet with a rating of 7.0 and emery, which comes with a rating of 8.0.

With the rigorous test, Marques was able to scratch the iPhone 6's front panel. However, the display exhibited relatively good resistance than the Gorilla Glass pertaining to iPhone 5S. It is worth noting that, even though there were scratch marks in the alleged iPhone 6 display, the sapphire Fingerprint scanner (Touch ID) on the home button in iPhone 5S did not show scratch marks upon scratching the same with the sandpaper.

Meaning, the reported front panel of the 4.7-inches iPhone 6 model may not be made of sapphire crystal, owing to the reported scratches. Alternatively, the display could be a next-generation Gorilla Glass. The other possibility is the hybrid version of sapphire coated display patented by Apple.

The result again goes on to prove the earlier report right. In other words, the usage of sapphire crystal display will be limited to the phablet 5.5-inches iPhone 6. However, Apple has not confirmed any of these reports.

Interested readers can check out the scratch test posted by Marques Brownlee: