After quietly appearing in Finland a few days ago, Samsung's Galaxy XCover Pro has now been given an official introduction.
The Galaxy XCover Pro has a feature that's used to be ubiquitous but has now all but disappeared from the smartphone world: a removable battery. The 4050mAh battery is easily user replaceable, meaning you can buy an extra battery and just pop it in when your main battery is running low on power.
Another highlight feature of Samsung's Galaxy XCover Pro is its rugged body. It's MIL-STD 810G-certified to help it stand up to extreme altitude, humidity, and other severe conditions. Its IP68 water and dust resistant, too, and can survive drops up to 1.5 meters without a case.
The display on the Galaxy XCover Pro is also prepared for the elements, because the 6.3-inch FHD+ display includes Wet Touch and Glove Mode so you can use the screen when your hands are wet or inside gloves. The hole-punch in the upper-left corner of that screen is a 13MP selfie camera, and around back there's a dual cam setup with a 25MP main sensor with f/1.7 aperture and 8MP secondary snapper with f/2.2 aperture.
Inside the XCover Pro's rugged shell is a 2GHz octa-core Exynos 9611 processor paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of built-in storage. There's a microSD card slot if you need more storage. Dual SIM support will be available in Europe initially and will be added in North America with a future software update. Samsung has also included a fingerprint reader on the side of the phone for added security
Rounding out the Android 10-powered Galaxy XCover Pro are two features aimed at business users. First is push-to-talk support that can be enabled using the XCover Pro's two programmable keys, letting you contact someone with just the push of a button. That includes Microsoft Teams and its new walkie talkie feature.
The other business-centric feature of the Galaxy XCover Pro is support for mobile point of sale (mPOS) and Samsung POS, which will enable businesses to accept payments without the need for dedicated POS hardware.
Samsung says the Galaxy XCover Pro will arrive in the U.S. in the first half of 2020 for $499.99.
While the Galaxy XCover Pro may have a business focus, it's got some features that could make it pretty appealing to regular consumers, too. The rugged body means it can stand up to some abuse without needing an extra case, and the removable battery lets you just swap in a fully-charged battery when one is dying rather than having to wait around for a non-removable battery to recharge.
What do you think of the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro? Does its rugged body and removable battery have you interested?
