North Korea’s first smartphone and $200 tablet run Android, are shrouded in mystery

North Korea’s first smartphone and $200 tablet run Android, are shrouded in mystery

North Korea is a land of mystery, the details of which only a select few non-North Koreans like Dennis Rodman are familiar with. The nation infamously doesn’t have normal internet access, but its citizens do have access to a nationwide intranet. Now, it appears the supreme leader has graced his disciples with a domestic smartphone and tablet, generous though he is.

It’s important to note that the smartphone and tablet are from North Korea, which means it’s a good guess if they’re what they appear to be — or even if they’re tangible, real things.

The tablet, known as the Samijyon, was reportedly purchased by a tourist for $200. It is made in North Korea, and runs Android. North Korea Tech was in contact with the tourist, who preferred to remain relatively anonymous, and gleaned a wealth of info. The Samijyon was purchased from a gift shop, and the tourist didn’t have an issue taking it out of the country. The tourist said it is almost as responsive as the world’s most prevalent tablets, creating barely any lag at all. According to the retail box, the tablet sports a 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB DDR3 of RAM, a 7-inch 1024×768 display, and either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage, though there is an SD card slot. The camera is 2 megapixels, the tablet runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, has a headphone jack and speaker, and weighs in at around 250 grams.

The tablet also features an analog TV tuner, with an antenna which expands out of the back like pulling a stylus out of a Nintendo DS but only gets five channels, all of which are North Korean; you cannot manually tune anything.

The Samijyon has Korean-language versions of Android apps, such as (a likely pirated) Angry Birds Rio, but doesn’t have any Google apps. Even though Google apps — like Gmail and YouTube — are free, hardware makers need to sign an agreement with Google in order to include them. This likely means that North Korea wasn’t thrilled about signing anything with Google, or that the tablet maker realized that Google’s apps don’t do much of anything without internet access, so there isn’t a reason to sign something. The tablet has a web browser, but the tablet doesn’t appear to have WiFi capabilities, so the web browser simply connects to the nationwide intranet. The Samijyong also comes with educational apps, such as a language-learning program.

North Korea claimed that this netbook was made domestically; in actual fact, it was just a re-badged Chinese device.

There aren’t as many details on the smartphone – a wily tourist didn’t purchase one and bring it across the world for video analysis. The details come from the Korean Central News Agency, which covered Kim Jong-un visiting the factory. Like the tablet, the phone — known as the Arirang — runs Android. The photos of the overlord’s visit don’t depict any kind of manufacturing, but rather shows employees inspecting finished phones. This likely means that the Arirang is made elsewhere and shipped to the factory, where it is then inspected and modified before release. All we really have on the phone is the above image of its front and back, and few other pictures of Kim Jong-un looking at things to add to the legend.

If the tablet really does have the quality the tourist reports, then there isn’t a reason to think the phone doesn’t share in that same level of quality — especially if a the phone is indeed produced by an experienced manufacturer in China or Taiwan, rather than domestically. Despite some shadiness (such as where the phone is produced), if North Korea really does have tablets and smartphones comparable to the ones we have, it certainly shows the country has taken a step forward getting with modern times.