Samsung announces new rugged smartphone, tablet with 5G support

Samsung Electronics America yesterday announced the market availability of the Galaxy XCover6 Pro smartphone and Galaxy Tab Active4 Pro tablet—two additions to the vendor’s rugged-device portfolio and the first device in each series to support 5G connectivity.

Both of the new Galaxy devices are designed to work in difficult environments, as they are MIL-STD-810Hii compliant to withstand extreme altitudes, temperatures, vibration and humidity. Both devices are also IP68iii rated for dust and water resistance, with the Galaxy XCover6 Pro display (pictured above) being built with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ that is designed to provide scratch and damage resistance.

“We built the Galaxy XCover6 Pro and Galaxy Tab Active4 Pro with frontline and field workers in mind — including the unique challenges they face on the job,” Chris Balcik, vice president and head of Mobile B2B at Samsung Electronics America, said in a prepared statement.

“With durable, water-resistant designs, replaceable batteries and 5G connectivity capabilities, these devices help frontline and field workers get the job done from anywhere there’s a connection, whether they’re on their feet, in trucks or at stores.”

Indeed, both new devices support Samsung DeX, which lets users connect handheld device to an external display and keyboard, so they can have a PC-like experience even in a vehicle. Both devices also can support end-to-end security with Samsung Knox defense-grade platform and the Knox Suite platform that is designed to help system administrators manage devices.

Users of the Galaxy XCover6 Pro and the Galaxy Tab Active4 Pro will be able to connect to the latest wireless broadband network technologies, including 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and CBRS systems, according to the Samsung press release. Both devices also feature a replaceable battery to ensure usage for extended periods of time.

In addition, both devices include programmable physical buttons that can be used to quickly access commonly-used applications such as push-to-talk services. Other Samsung devices in the XCover family have supported FirstNet PTT—a Samsung-developed mission-critical-push-to-talk (MCPTT) service—but Samsung officials did not respond to a request from IWCE’s Urgent Communications seeking clarification that the Galaxy XCover6 Pro supports FirstNet PTT in time to be included in this article.

Industry sources indicated that the Galaxy XCover6 Pro is now Samsung’s top-tier rugged handset, replacing the Galaxy XCover Field Pro that reportedly was discontinued at the end of 2021.

The XCover Field Pro was lauded as the one device that allowed FirstNet PTT to fully comply with the 3GPP’s MCPTT standard, because it was optimized for MCPTT and was the lone smartphone on the market with a Samsung chipset that supported Proximity Service (ProSe) direct-mode connectivity. However, ProSe was never offered commercially and seemingly has been abandoned by the industry.

Ken Rehbehn, principal analyst at CritComm Insights, noted the chipset change in the Galaxy XCover6 Pro, as well as potentially critical enhancement in the devices ability to support Z-axis vertical-location applications.

“The Galaxy XCover6 Pro launch is an important refresh of Samsung’s ruggedized device portfolio,” Rehbehn said in a statement provided to IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

“First, the upgrade replaces the Samsung Exynos 9611 chipset with the Qualcomm SM7325 Snapdragon chipset, a significant move by Samsung. Second, the new device fills in an important gap in the XCover portfolio for public safety users by adding a barometric sensor needed for use with FirstNet’s in-building location service.”