The only images we’ve seen of the upcoming HTC One Max up to this point have been small and somewhat blurry hands-on pictures taken by those who have managed to obtain the device early. But the latest picture is a high-quality, “non-final” press shot believed to be from HTC.

But according to one HTC employee, it’s fake.

The image comes from the ever reliable @Evleaks, who believes it is “non-final artwork” for the upcoming HTC T6, better known as the HTC One Max. The handset looks almost exactly like the original HTC One, but there are some noticeable differences.

The phone in the picture has no Beats Audio logo on its back, and no proximity sensors on its front. Like the HTC One Mini, it also has dedicated volume buttons — not just one rocker — and its LED flash sits below the camera, rather than alongside it. Finally, its bottom BoomSound speaker appears wider than the top one, and the bezel around its display looks significantly thinner.

The shot looks pretty genuine — this is exactly what we expect the One Max to look like — but according to HTC’s Senior Global Online Communications Manager, Jeff Gordon, the image is fake.

“Fake. @evleaks is way off his game,” Gordon wrote in the comments section of an Engadget post. “I know it’s fake,” he added, “I work for HTC.”

This particular image may not be as genuine as it seems, then, but as we know from those hands-on images that popped up earlier this month, the real HTC One Max should look a lot like this. Rumor has it the device will offer a 5.9-inch 1080p display, a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 3,200mAh battery, and HTC’s UltraPixel camera.

The One Max is expected to appear next month around IFA 2013 in Berlin, and it’ll compete with Samsung’s Galaxy Note III and other high-end phablets from the likes of LG, Sony, and Huawei.

• Sourceevleaks