The Weird, Terrible Smartphones They Only Have in North Korea

Video written by Ben Doyle

[Strykenine]

Everyone and their mother is scared of North Korea, but once Nintendo finds out they're using an unlicensed Mario ripoff on their smartphone the DPRK will suddenly be part owned by a Tokyo law firm.

[EnigmaticGentleman]

Each phone coming with Super Mario Galaxy is genuinely really cool, someone over there actually has good taste in games

[tupcho]

As a person who works in the field of telecom - i can assure you at least 2000 calls come out from NK daily, some seem to be legit calls and not just NK pretending to have external connectivity

[PotatoGaming]

They got 5 angry birds and a super mario galaxy? What the fuck dude, this is unfair

[TheWatermelon]

Me: *clicks game ad*
Also me: *gets teleported to the physical app store*

[jangschoen]

So they get Angry Birds Star Wars and not us?

[Generalth]

Hi Sam!

Huge shout out to Amy braving the Korean DMZ to steal one of these phones herself, just to provide the b-roll for this video. She deserves a raise!

[Ridcally]

It's cool how windows recall is actually north Korean technology

[cesaravegah]

The amount of spyware and backdoors those things carry must be off the charts

[chegadesuade]

"I may eat grass to survive, but at least I have the Pyongyang X on the 5G Wireless Koryo network" - North Korean commercial

[KieranBorovac]

Just to let y'all know: YouTube has a feature where you can upload a transcript of the video and it automatically generates a closed caption track with the right timings. Presumably you already have a script for these videos, so you can just copy that in and get accurate subtitles for very little extra work. Just noting this for accessibility :)

[clamdove]

i wonder how often north korean cellphones run out of storage space because of how many screenshots the phone has taken. i wonder what you do when that happens. do you just go to the government and say "hey can you remove these screenshots so i can download another game pls"

[NigelMelanisticSmith]

I'm a sucker for a good gimmick, and can admit that I'd love the gimmick of going to a real store just to download an app lol.

[random-dy]

3:04 I like how this phone brand spoofed the whole TouchWiz UI from 2012.

[YuNherd]

3:53 Cmon nintendo, its your boi Mario in there, you gota call your lawyers

[mfaizsyahmi]

1:44 Orascom, the Egyptian infra company: "Yallah, the North Koreans tricked us and stole our stuff!"
Volvo: "First time?"

[thelakeman]

Plugging in a keyboard to an android phone is a standard feature, as long as your device supports otg which is every device made in the last 8-10 years. Considering android uses the linux kernel, every plug and play keyboard and mice should just work, they've in my experience at least.

[imsamiurrahman]

Plot twist: North Korean phones come with Kim Jong Un's picture as the default wallpaper.

[celciones]

"Limited Apps, No Privacy, 24/7 Tracking" - so, not that different from the phones sold in any other country. I get it.

[theundead]

I am surprised to learn that they even have smartphones.