Oh come on, don’t look so surprised -- you didn’t really think we’d make it all the way to an Apple product announcement today without at least one last-minute leaked photo, did you? No one is saying this is the real next-gen iPad, but feel free to savor the flavor while we wait for the real deal anyway.

Engadget is reporting that something that appears to be a next-gen iPad mockup has shown up in China, land of where our iPads come from in the first place. With mere hours until Apple presumably shows off the real thing, join us in absorbing these images and trying to pick them apart to find the fakery, won’t you?

“The above mockup has been procured over in China (where else?) and seems to tally closely with speculation we've been hearing about this hardware refresh -- namely, a slimmer profile, an almost entirely flat back, bigger speaker, and of course, rear- and front-facing cameras,” Engadget notes. “We’ve looked into the digits on the back of the device and the model number is one for the original Apple TV while the FCC ID is for a WiFi-only iPad, but those could be mere placeholders on what is, once again, a mockup and not a real working tablet.”

So what do you think, dear reader? The real McCoy or another Chinese knockoff? We’ll all know for sure soon enough…

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(Images courtesy of Engadget)