Pantech’s Vega Mirrors Samsung’s Galaxy Note

South Korean smartphone maker Pantech Co. unveiled a new model dubbed the “Vega Secret Note” this week that has a striking resemblance to Samsung’s popular Galaxy Note lineup.


Pantech’s Vega Note smartphone

Pantech Co.Coincidence? Maybe not, since Samsung recently bought a 10% stake in the company.

When Samsung Electronics Co. announced those plans in May, the decision raised many eyebrows because Pantech didn’t seem to have much to offer Samsung in terms of technology or software capabilities. Samsung, without elaborating, had said the investment is aimed at solidifying its relationship with Pantech, which buys components from Samsung.

Now with Pantech joining Samsung in selling the “Note” phablet category–albeit under a different brand–it seems like the underdog handset maker may have a role to play in underscoring Samsung’s dominance in the category it says it created.

Samsung declined to comment on whether there were any agreements between the two phonemakers regarding the launch of the Vega Note model.

“We plan to market the idea that the Vega Note comes with one more extra feature than (the Galaxy Note), which is the finger print sensor,” Park Chang-jin, a marketing executive at Pantech said during a news conference in Seoul on Thursday. He declined to comment on whether the similarities between the two phablet–smartphones with extra large screens–models had been intended.

Pantech has loaded the phone with a finger print sensor, which seems to be a trend that’s catching on among Asian smartphone makers, at the back of the phone.

Pantech’s new phablet has as 5.9-inch full high-definition screen, which is even bigger than the Galaxy Note’s 5.7-inch display, while it comes with a stylus pen called the V-pen, as opposed to Samsung’s S-pen.

The Vega Note is far from being a threat to the Galaxy Note 3 in terms of market share because Pantech doesn’t have plans to go abroad with this particular model, while the company announced a relatively modest domestic sales target: 1% of South Korean population or about 500,000 units.

The company, which posted a loss of 115 billion won (US$107 million) in the first half of this year, has said it plans to readjust its sales strategy to focus more on domestic sales as it struggles to compete with big names like Samsung, Apple Inc. and LG Electronics Inc.