14 DAY TRIAL // Only a few days have passed since Samsung disclosed the first details about the Galaxy Xcover 3, a rugged mid-range phone with IP67 certification.
It appears Sammy wants to focus on the rugged phone market this year. The company is getting ready to roll out a spin-off of the Galaxy S6, called the Galaxy S6 Active, which will be sold under AT&T.
Well, today brings us word of another rugged phone. It’s not a smartphone like the Xcover 3, but actually a feature phone. Nevertheless, the device has been launched under the same Xcover 3 moniker.
So it appears that Samsung is looking to introduce a whole Xcover 3 family of devices, and two of them have already been revealed.
Samsung's upcoming rugged phone leaks
The new feature phone is called the Samsung B550 Xcover 3 and arrives with a 2.4-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) display. Say hello to the ages of old once more.
The phone is powered by a SC77030A processor combined with a ridiculous (for today’s standards) 128MB of RAM and 128MB of internal storage.
Even if the B550 Xcover 3 might be dead on arrival for today’s market, the phone does come with its perks. For example, it boasts IP67 certification like its intelligent counterpart, the Galaxy Xcover 3. To be fair, the phone does seem quite durable, making us think of the golden Nokia age.
B550 relies on what these days would be considered a small 1,300 mAh battery. However, given the meager specs, we can expect the new Samsung feature phone to offer quite the life cycle.
Other specs of the new Xcover 3 include a 3MP camera, microSD slot, FM Radio and Bluetooth. The handset is also compatible with dual-band (900/2100), HSDPA 7.2.
Is this rugged feature phone worth the money?
The source indicates that Samsung will roll out the phone on the market starting in Q2 and we should be expecting a price of around €99 / $104, which seems like a bit too much.
At least considering that Samsung just introduced the Galaxy J1 in Europe, a few days ago. It’s a smartphone that can be yours for as low as €120 / $130. For this amount of money you’ll receive a phone with a 4.3-inch WVGA (800 x 480 pixel resolution) and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor on the inside, working in concert with 768MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage (microSD card available).
So would you pay a similar amount of cash to get a rugged feature phone instead?