Samsung’s new $499 rugged smartphone is built like a tank for tough environments

By Shubham Agarwal Published January 13, 2020

After accidentally leaking it on its own Finnish website, Samsung has now gone official with its latest rugged smartphone. Called the Galaxy XCover Pro, the phone is built like a tank and is primarily intended for field workers and enterprises. It will go on sale for $499 in the United States sometime in the first half of 2020. Individual customers will be able to buy the Galaxy XCover Pro as well from Samsung’s website for the same price.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Being a rugged device, the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro’s headlining feature is its thick exterior that is designed to withstand falls (of up to 5 feet) and other damages a regular glass phone won’t likely survive. It is IP68 dust and water-resistant and also MIL-STD 810G certified which essentially means it won’t die on you in extreme environments of high temperatures, altitudes, and more.

Recommended Videos

The other highlight that helps the Galaxy XCover Pro stand out is its removable battery. You can swap out the phone’s hefty 4,050mAh battery for a new pack (that is sold separately) when you don’t have a charger or outlet around just like the good ol’ days. In addition, it supports 15W fast-charging over a USB Type-C port.

What’s more, the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro features a set of pogo pins for directly plugging in a range of external accessories like card readers, scanners, and more. It’s EMV Level 1 certified allowing businesses to use it as a point-of-sale terminal for accepting payments from NFC-equipped credit cards, phones, and watches.

Under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro offers a standard set of mid-range specs. There’s a 6.3-inch 1080p screen (that you can operate with gloves as well as wet fingers), a 2GHz octa-core Samsung Exynos 9611 chipset, Android 10, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of onboard storage that can be expanded via a MicroSD card.

There are two cameras on the back — a primary 25-megapixel sensor and a secondary 8-megapixel shooter. On the front, you’ll find a 13-megapixel selfie camera as well. Plus, a fingerprint sensor is available on the side housed under the power key. The phone even comes equipped with two programmable hardware keys, none of which are bound by default to the company’s virtual assistant, Bixby.

Shubham Agarwal

Former Journalist

Shubham Agarwal is a freelance technology journalist from Ahmedabad, India. His work has previously appeared in Firstpost…

Topics

Phones

A US state just approved an AI doctor. For now, it’ll only prescribe acne cures.

Aside from acne, Nolla's AI can also handle redness, fine lines and wrinkles, hyperpigmentation and dark spots, and under-eye bags.

Nolla Derm AI doctor app.

The first AI doctor is here. Despite all the skepticism and risks associated with AI models going haywire, the state of Utah just approved Nolla Health, a company that is providing an AI healthcare expert capable of writing prescriptions without any human in the chain. For now, it will only write acne prescriptions for Utah residents over 18 years of age, willing to pay a token monthly subscription fee that's lighter than your Spotify bill.

The big push here is that the Nolla Derm app will reduce the costs of medical consultation, save users the hassle of clinic visits, and take out the problem of waitlisting from the entire healthcare equation. “Unlike telehealth platforms that use AI only to collect information before handing patients off to clinicians, Nolla's AI system is designed to independently issue initial prescriptions within tightly defined, physician-approved treatment protocols,” writes the company.

Computing

Google may be teaching Pixel Search to think one step ahead

Pixel Search could soon help finish the job after finding what you need

Electronics, Mobile Phone, Phone

Google ships its phones with Pixel Search that is built to save you from digging through your phone to find an app, email, photo, and more. Now, it appears to be taking this process even further by trying to figure out what you want to do with the results.

An APK teardown of Pixel Search version 1.0.983036833 by Android Authority has uncovered an unreleased feature called Gemini-powered suggestions. Strings inside the app describe it as a way to surface relevant information alongside Gemini-suggested actions that can help you “finish a task faster.”

Computing

Not sure if a Prime Day deal is legit? Malwarebytes has a free link checker to verify it

Scam Link Check analyzes URLs for phishing pages, redirects, and newly registered domains.

Online Scam Fraud MacBook

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days is about to kick off, which means shoppers are going to see plenty of emails, texts, ads, and social posts promising limited-time discounts. Scammers know the drill too. Fake shopping sites can now copy familiar brands, recreate convincing storefronts, and use AI-generated images or polished copy to make a bad link look legitimate at first glance.

Malwarebytes has launched Scam Link Check, a free tool for checking a questionable URL before opening it. Paste in an address and the service analyzes where it leads and looks for signs that something is wrong.