Kim Jong-Un's mysterious phone: not a Samsung, but what is it?

Image courtesy of AFP/Getty Images

North Korea’s beloved ‘Supreme Leader’ Kim Jong-Un, believed to be a 20 something man, has taken over the task of heading the world’s most secretive state, but a recent picture released by North Korea’s media showed Kim at a meeting and a touchscreen handset was spotted right next to him. If the logical guess that this is his telephone, then the North Korean dictator is obviously not indifferent to modern technology.

Kim was shown presiding a meeting with a lit cigarette in his hand, but it was the dark mysterious device right next to him that raised the most questions.

"It's believed that the smartphone belonged to Kim given that the device was placed right next to the documents he was looking at," a South Korean official commented for news agency Agence France-Presse.

Could it be a Samsung phone, an iPhone, or something else? It’s hard to say - it’s actually easy to dress up a phone in a cover to mask it up as anything, but if we assume that it’s not in a case, then we can try and spot which phone it looks like.

We do however have Samsung’s denial. The company says not a single Samsung device has made it into North Korea. That’s easy to explain - the North views the South as its biggest rival, and if the ‘Supreme Leader’ would use a Samsung that would tacitly admit the South’s privileged position.

"It's not a Samsung phone," a Samsung official was concise and clear.

It’s hard to believe that’s an iPhone either. First, because it doesn’t look like one, and second - because the United States are another enemy of the North Korean state.

HTC on the other hand is one possible candidate to have manufactured the device. It has not explicitly confirmed, but said it is happy for the "support of all users".

It’s also possible that Kim Jong-Un is using a device made in China that is not widely popular. What do you think?

source: The Telegraph