Once in a while I like to take a glance at the website NKnews.org. A non-North Korean website that produces news on the DPRK. A website that uses anti-DPRK individuals to produce the content on it. (For example Laura Ling who legally entered the country with the intent of slandering it, and was subsequently caught by government forces.) I’ve had issues with their work in the past, even having them respond to one of my videos criticizing them for claiming that Marx and Lenin statues were removed from Kim Il-Sung Square, when they were never there to begin with. I’ve found that often they use either flimsy evidence or no evidence at all to demonstrate their claims. I’d like a moment to take issue with one such post.

For a little time now the DPRK has produced its own tablet PCs. There have been different variations of them. It has been the contention of anti-DPRK publications that these tablet PCs are clones of iPads. Very weak evidence is given to support this claim. The DPRK now has a new tablet PC out, “Arirang” device along with the larger “Samjiyon” tablet. This is being called the third iPad clone. This is what they say about it:

“a close look at the Chinese market reveals striking similarities between the new DPRK made device and a generic Chinese iPad clone.”

This is the accompanying evidence to back up this claim.

Frankly I don’t see how this demonstrates anything. They look very much like all the other tablet PCs I’ve seen on the market.

Samsung 89 Galaxy

Panasonic Viera Tablet

Gigabyte S1080

Asus Eee Slate EP121

Dell Streak 7

HP PalmPad

They pretty much all look the same, I don’t see any real difference among them. There are only slight differences in appearance. The idea that they are clones by pointing to the fact they have a camera in the middle and buttons on the side doesn’t actually say anything. Almost all of them are manufactured that way.

Another piece of evidence that is given is the claim that they are manufactured in China, not in the DPRK. This claim comes from many sources including the NKnews.org. This is however untrue, we have footage from the DPRK manufacturing the tablet PCs.

I would say that we need some actual honest evidence before we can conclude that the North Koreans don’t manufacture tablet PCs. Also, a correlation in appearance is not proof of the tablets being a clone. They all look similar.

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NKNews.org Article
http://www.nknews.org/2012/10/north-korea-releases-its-third-ipad-clone/