iPhone 5 has 4.3-inch screen, says French source

The iPhone 5 will boast a new giant-sized 4.3-inch screen, CNET France has discovered. Bonjour le grand iPhone Cinq!

Our French is un petit peu on the rusty side, but we checked the details with our Gallic gadgeteer chums at CNET France. They were shown a new smart phone today -- not by Apple, but another manufacturer familiar with its plans -- and were told that the screen on the new iPhone will be the same size as the screen to be found on the HTC Evo 3D.

The slab-like Evo packs a giant 4.3-inch display, great for watching videos, browsing the Web and playing games. That makes the new iPhone a hefty sight bigger than the current 3.5-inch iPhone 4 -- although it's unclear what the resolution will be and whether it will match the current model's eye-poppingly detailed 640x960-pixel retina display.

The Evo 3D has a 540x960-pixel screen. That's 262 pixels per inch -- less than the 326ppi displayed by the current iPhone 4. Apple is unlikely to release a phone with a lower resolution, but that's not to say we expect a huge upgrade -- after all, the iPad 2 has the exact same screen resolution as the original iPad.

You can work out your phone's display PPI using this handy calculator.

It's possible that our French deep throat is wrong about the exact resolution. But it does add weight to rumours that there are not one but two iPhones in the pipeline: an iPhone 4S, physically identical to the current model but with souped-up specs, and a larger model, perhaps called the iPhone 4 Plus. Or iPhone Big. Or iPhone 5.

Either way, we'll find out for definite on Tuesday at 6pm, when Apple takes the wraps off the next iPhone. CNET UK will be all over the UK launch event like brûlée on crème, so stick with us for all the news, pictures and hands-on first impressions.

Would you buy a bigger iPhone, or is it just the right size as it is? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.