SK Telecom began selling the Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE by Samsung Electronics on Tuesday, the first tablet PC in Korea running on the fourth-generation long term evolution network service.

With the entry of the tablet PC, the nation’s No. 1 telecom operator said it has completed its full line up of devices for LTE service.

SK Telecom, which started the faster network service in July, also launched Samsung’s Galaxy Note, which has characteristics of both a smartphone and tablet PC, in November for the first time globally.

Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE, which was unveiled on Nov. 28 in Korea, is the most advanced tablet PC, the company said.

Along with offering five times faster communications services compared to the most-widely used 3G networks, the gadget is the first tablet PC to run on the 1.5 gigahertz dual core processor.

It also adopted an advanced 8.9-inch WXGA display for better viewing quality, with an ultralight design of 8.6 millimeters in thickness and 456 grams in weight.

Even though the device doesn’t feature voice communication, it supports messaging services both for SMS and MMS, which is also the world’s first.

The sales price of Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE is fixed at 760,000 won ($659) for 16 gigabytes of internal memory and 837,000 won for 32 gigabytes.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)