Comment Tweet Share Share Digg

.

In Korea, unless you have been strolling down the streets with your eyes shut, wearing an oversized visor and matching blindfold with your head encased in a cardboard box, you will have without a doubt noticed the tablet tension that is building on the humid streets of Seoul.

The Korean Herald has described it as “an intense war” and Telecoms Korea has dubbed it a “tablet war,” with the country’s two leading Telcos SKT and KT making their regular appearance on opposing sides of the tab fad and Apple about to hop into the ring at any moment.

So what is the combat chat about? And more importantly who is going to come out the winner?

KT recently announced that it had received 130,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4 in less than a day. No one would have sniggered at you for speculating that it might also decide to further nurture its friendship with Apple and sell the iPad.

However KT has done some soul [Seoul?] searching and decided to carve out its own tablet identity with plans to service the “identity pad” by developer Enspert. Offering it on a two year contract for $23 or a mere $411 if bought outright and unchained, it’s a steal.

The identity tab has a one gigahertz CPU, 8GB of memory and a 3-megapixel camera. Operating on the Android platform, users will be able to download apps from KT’s own app store or from Google’s Android Market.

Not bad for the cool quid that it is expected to be sold for as of September 10^th.

KT’s main rival SKT is expected to offer a rather pricier tab produced by Samsung and unveiled at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Germany this week.

The Samsung “Galaxy tab” is expected to set you back a cool $700 dollars making more room in your pocket for the 7-inch, 13.4 ounce, pouch size device.

Also due to run on Google’s Android 2.2 (Froyo) with an expected upgrade to version 3.0 Gingerbread and maybe even the elusive Honeycomb when it becomes available, this tab is smaller and lighter than the iPad, but whether or not it is as successful may depend on the ability of the software to impress punters. The jury is out on that one until its official release in October.

Both device makers have obviously taken their inspirational cue from the iPad, however their appearance may be the only thing that the tab trio all have in common. With the Identity and Galaxy tab both supporting entirely different technologies from the iPad, the Korean devices are rather distinct creatures.

With sources reporting the release of the iPad in Korea sometime this month, we will be keeping tabs on which one is left standing in this survival of the fittest.