Photos have surfaced of a Nintendo 3DS hardware unit that was reportedly stolen from a Chinese manufacturing facility. While the unit appears to be a near-final revision, it lacks the required firmware to boot into an OS environment, essentially making it a fancy-looking brick. Turning the unit on, as the above photo indicates, shows an SDK version string along with the total amount of physical RAM installed.

Interestingly, this unit boasts 96MB of RAM, which is a fair bit more than the 64MB IGN’s source claimed. The included battery pack is rated at 1300 mAh, up from the stock 1200 mAh battery on Sony’s PSP-3000. Beyond that, the aesthetics appear to mimic what was shown at E3 2010.

The factory bandit went as far to film a video of turning the unit on with a Super Mario DS cart inserted, which can be seen after the break.

Nintendo 3DS China Leak [imgur, via 3DSBlog]

Follow this author on Twitter.