Samsung is well known for their high-end smartphones – who wouldn’t have heard of the Galaxy S series, the Galaxy Note and who would have ignored the Galaxy Fold and Flip foldable designs?
There are some notable mentions from the company in the mid-range tier too but not many people know Samsung also produces some rugged devices.
Their Galaxy XCover 5 is the latest example coming from Samsung. It sports a no-frills, utilitarian design, available in black only and no fancy glass back.
Actually, the back is removable since the Galaxy XCover 5 is one of the very few phones I have seen lately that uses a swappable battery. I was puzzled when I tried turning it on after leaving it charging overnight and nothing happened – then I realised the battery was still inside the box (I probably missed it because the review unit was used by someone else before and the battery was at the bottom of the box, where I didn’t notice it until I started looking for it).
At this point, I should also mention that, even with the battery correctly inserted and the back cover back in place, the Galaxy XCover 5 is extremely light weighing a surprising 170g only. I guess not having a fancy glass back and metal trimmings helps here too.
Overall the XCover 5 is not a large phone, measuring only 147 x 71 x 9 mm and using a small (for today’s standards) 5.3” LCD with 1480 x 720 pixels resolution (with 60 Hz refresh).
This means it fits nicely in your hands and it is a comfortable size to grip and hold, which is what you need for a phone that was clearly designed to be used by people that need a phone while out and about, something that can stand a few more bumps and drops than your ordinary smartphone.
The phone is designed to pass MIL-STD810H durability test conditions. This also means it is a good choice for adventurers and outdoors people that need something more durable, water, dust and drop resistant.
This also comes to mind when you see the phone screen has an increased touch sensitivity so it works when you have gloves on or if you have wet hands.
The Galaxy XCover 5 does not have a big batter – in fact, one of the reasons it is so light is the smaller 3,000 mAh battery size, which is ok in there of running time, seeing the whole system runs on 2 GHz octa-core processor, which means it doesn’t require as much power as some other more powerful devices.
In terms of memory, at 4 GB RAM, it has just enough to run most apps without creating problems swapping between apps but its 64 GB storage (which comes down to around 47 GB available when reset) is the bare minimum these days – it could do with double that storage but at least you have the luxury of a microSD card slot.
This phone is a 4G dual-SIM model, making it perfect for those working on the go, so you don’t have to carry multiple phones to keep both work and personal contact lines handy. It supports WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2.4/5 GHz, Bluetooth 5.0 and most impressive, NFC as well, which comes in handy with Google Pay.
The camera is also pretty simple – none of those multiple lenses things you see in mid- and high-end phones. You have a single 16 megapixel (F1.8) lens camera in the rear with digital zoom support only, up to 10x. This is complemented by a 5 megapixel (F2.2) front-facing camera. Not at all fancy but effective and again, ideal for those out and about that worry more about durability than fanciness.
