Samsung’s Rugged New Phone Lets You Swap Batteries Like It’s 2012

Summary: Samsung’s latest devices, the Galaxy XCover 7 Pro and the Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro, have a removable battery. This means the batteries are user-replaceable, allowing for little downtime if a battery gets depleted and needs a recharge.

Samsung officially announced the Galaxy XCover 7 Pro powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen3 on April 14, but one detail that wasn’t highlighted in our initial report is that the battery on the phone is removable. Well, as it turns out, the phone does come with a removable battery, allowing users to pop it out and replace it with one that’s completely charged when necessary.

Removable batteries are a feature of Android smartphones from a bygone era. An age of tech when devices may not have been as advanced as they are today, but they still offered a few hardware niceties that companies have deemed useless when it comes to modern smartphones.

The fact that the Galaxy XCover 7 Pro comes with a removable battery shouldn’t be a huge surprise. It’s designed to be Samsung’s rugged smartphone intended for use by people who do a lot of work out in the field. Contractors, construction workers, IT professionals who don’t sit behind a desk. Basically, anyone who might have a need for a device that can withstand a little more rigorous use. With that in mind, the last thing you might want is your phone’s battery going dead when you’re out in the field and not able to charge it.

That’s where the removable battery comes in. Should the initial battery drain completely, you can pop in another and keep going.

The Samsung Galaxy XCover 7 Pro battery is removable, but doesn’t appear to be hot-swappable

Samsung doesn’t clearly state this particular detail. However, the Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro does have a hot-swappable battery. Samsung also clearly labels it as hot-swappable. It doesn’t do this for the Galaxy XCover 7 Pro. So, unfortunately, you’ll want to power the device down before replacing the battery.

With the Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro, the ‘Dual Hot-Swap Battery functionality’ allows workers to “replace batteries without powering down their devices and ensuring seamless operation even when battery levels are low.” Samsung does note that if a battery is swapped out while the device is powered on, the screen will turn off. It also states that some features may be limited during this time. Features will then be reactivated once the battery swap is completed.

The key here, though, is having the ability to quickly swap the batteries out. So even if features are limited, this should be brief.

Only Samsung-certified products are compatible for use

It goes without saying that if you’re going to use replaceable batteries, you should stick to the proper equipment. Samsung says that only Samsung-certified products are compatible for use. This doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a Samsung battery. However, it’s probably best to stick with a Samsung battery anyway.

This is an important distinction to make. Anyone planning to buy this device should make sure the replacement battery is going to do its job.