Arirang is a

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

n Android smartphone announced on 10 August 2013. The phone was distributed to local sales points operated by mobile operators such as Koryolink to be sold together with 3G SIMs or as a stand-alone device. It is named after the "

Arirang "Arirang" (; ) is a Korean folk song. There are about 3,600 variations of 60 different versions of the song, all of which include a refrain similar to "''Arirang, arirang, arariyo'' ()". It is estimated the song is more than 600 years old. ...

" Korean folk song. The

Korean Central News Agency The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) is the state news agency of North Korea. The agency portrays the views of the North Korean government for both domestic and foreign consumption. It was established on December 5, 1946 and now features onli ...

(KCNA), North Korea's state news agency, reported that the phone, which utilizes a touch screen and a camera with "high pixels," is produced entirely within North Korea. The phone appears to run a derivative of the Android operating system. Blogger Martyn Williams has expressed skepticism, commenting that the phone may actually be produced in China and then inspected or completed in North Korea. Kim Jong-un has expressed his excitement with and support of the smartphone, believing it will support the country's

economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

and "instill national pride and self-respect". The phone, model number AS1201, is a re-branded and re-badged Uniscope U1201 and runs a slightly modified version of Android 4.0.4. The Arirang 171 (아리랑171) was released in 2018. The phone runs Android Nougat and contains a 2.6 GHz MT6797 chip from

MediaTek MediaTek Inc. () is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company that provides chips for wireless communications, high-definition television, handheld mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers, navigation systems, consumer multimedia ...

. The Arirang 171 can connect to the

Mirae public WiFi network Mirae (In Korean, Future) may refer to : *Daegu Mirae College, a private college located in Gyeongsan City, South Korea * Mirae Asset, a securities and insurance company, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea *''Mirae caritatis ''Mirae caritatis' ...

References

{{Reflist Smartphones Economy of North Korea Science and technology in North Korea

See also

References