Well people the internet over were skeptical. I personally wanted it to be true, but it turns out that the supposed leaked image of the Nexus 3 was indeed a fake. As several people have noticed, there do appear to be signs on the image which would tend to indicate a photoshop job. The site responsible for the leak has apologized and explained that their source, whom they believed to be a Google employee, was in fact not. It was fun while it lasted, now we go back to awaiting the real Nexus 3.

It was a weak link from the beginning, and now the evidence proves hands down the leak was always a fake. TechHog had several photo experts confirm that the image had indeed been fabricated, as many suspected. Adding to the certainty was a non-responsive source, who it turns out was the one who requested TechHog pull the info and image from the site. I can’t imagine what so motivated this guy to fake a leak anonymously, but he clearly put some thought into it.

The image above is the supposed source of the fake leak. We aren’t sure what this phone is, but it bears a resemblance to several previous HTC phones, appearing to be a metallic version of the Sensation, or the Incredible S. A key thing to notice is that the image above, still has the usual extra bezel space for hardware buttons, even though they are not visible, further strengthening the link to the Incredible S and its rotating capacitive buttons. We’ll keep you updated if anymore details about this phone, or the Nexus 3 comes to light.

[via TechHog]