Carriers to start selling Apple tablets Monday

SK Telecom and KT will begin selling the iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina display on Monday, the companies said separately yesterday.

It is the first time the latest Apple tablets will be sold in Korean stores since the U.S. company unveiled them in October. They went on sale in 40 initial release countries on Nov. 1.

The iPad Air, equipped with a 9.7-inch (24.6-centimeter) Retina display, weighs 453 grams (16 ounces), 28 percent lighter than the fourth-generation iPad, and is 20 percent thinner.

The 7.9-inch iPad Mini with Retina display weighs 341 grams. Both models come with 64-bit A7 chip and new operating system iOS7.

According to the companies, both models will be sold in four capacities - 16, 32, 64 and 128 gigabytes. Prices of the tablets were not announced.

SK Telecom unveiled the pricing plans: the tablet-only plan and the data sharing plan. The tablet-only plan charges a basic fee but gives a certain amount of free data. The data sharing plan allows an SK Telecom mobile phone subscriber to split data between their smartphone and an Apple tablet. KT is yet to come out with pricing plans but will have similar plans to SK’s, a KT official said. The Apple tablets will vie with Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Note 10.1 and LG Electronics’ G Pad 8.3.

BY MOON GWANG-LIP [joe@joongang.co.kr]