Alaska News

Kim Jong-un has a smartphone

What does the Onion's Sexiest Man Alive use for making important phone calls? His smartphone, of course.

Internet access is off-limits for most North Koreans. Yet North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un was recently photographed with an unidentified smartphone placed beside him during a meeting. The photograph, released by the North's state media, has sparked much speculation, Agence France Presse reported. "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 government official told the AFP.

Which brand is he using? People agree that he would never get a Galaxy phone, as it is made by Samsung, a company in the North's rival South Korea. "I regret to say that I don't think Kim would be seen dead with a Samsung," a technician told the New York Daily News.

And Kim Jong-un might want to bomb America, so Apple is off the table. That leaves the most likely choice to be a smartphone made by HTC, a Taiwan brand, Taipei Times reported.

The Taiwanese firm declined confirm the speculation, but said in a statement that the company appreciated the "support of all users," the Daily Telegraph reported, even the apparent support of users conducting scary nuclear tests.

"It must have been politically uncomfortable for Kim Jong-Un to use products made by the US... and he can't publicly endorse the fact that the South is more technologically advanced," South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper said.

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