Samsung has just introduced their first phone under their Enterprise Edition marque dubbed the Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition in Malaysia.

While their Enterprise Edition devices have been around for awhile in other regions like the United States and Europe, they’ve only just made their first foray here in Malaysia to offer businesses a viable smartphone for enterprise use, offering a suite of features that make it ideal for small to medium enterprises and large businesses alike.

What is a Samsung Enterprise Edition device?

A Samsung Enterprise Edition device is not so much about the hardware as it is about the software underneath the hood and additional services offered to support it. While they all run Android, and in the case of the Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition the latest version of Android 11, Enterprise Edition phones have the added addition of the Samsung Knox Suite to offer enhance and timely security support and additional customisability and control per device.

While consumer phones do have Knox security built in to offer financial payment services like Samsung Pay and have the ability to create a separate secure partition for data, Samsung Knox Suite services dial things to 11 with significantly more robust security and, by design, a whole lot more hoops to jump through. 

For the uninitiated, the Samsung Knox Suite is an enterprise mobility management solution available on Samsung Enterprise Edition phones that offers both security and management solutions.

Basically, Knox Suite lets IT administrators easily manage and push out firmware and security patch updates for Samsung Enterprise Edition devices without having to do it individually one by one and helps ensure that they remain secure from tampering and hacks be it hardware or software. All this helps to ensure every Samsung Enterprise Edition phone remains up to date, functional and secure. 

That’s not all, from a big picture level, Samsung Enterprise Devices are also rated for longer support than consumer devices with up to 5-years of security maintenance releases and two years of product availability after their official launch

All this makes them easier to own, easier to replace and repair which are important criteria for companies that typically use the same model of phone en masse for years at a time. But what makes the new XCover 5 Enterprise Edition so special?

What is the Samsung Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition?

In Malaysia, the first official Samsung Enterprise Edition phone is the Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition. More established markets feature a selection of other Samsung phones under the Enterprise Edition umbrella such as the Galaxy A50, Galaxy S20, Galaxy Note10 and Tab Active 3. There’s no word on if these variants will appear in our market anytime soon though it’s not out of the question. 

At a glance, the Galaxy XCover 5 has fairly normal specifications with a 5.3-inch, 1,480 x 720 pixel TFT LCD display, a modest Exynos 850 octacore processor paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB of expandable storage along with a 3,000mAh battery that is rated for up to 13 hours of video playback.

Connectivity extends to WiFi 5 and Bluetooth v5.0 along with NFC and it also has a 3.5mm audio jack. On the rear, the phone features a 16MP F/1.8 camera with dual LED flash and the front has a single 5MP selfie camera. 

Here’s a few of the benchmarks of the phone:

3DMark Wildlife 430

3DMark WildLife Extreme 120

3DMark SlingShot 1,262

3DMark SlingSHot Extreme Open GL ES 3.1 867

PCMark Work 3.0 performance 5,827

PCMark Work 3.0 Battery Life 14 Hours 10 minutes

Geekbench SIngle core score 181

GeekBench Multi core score 1,109

To be fair, it won’t hold a candle to a cutting edge phone like the Galaxy S21 Ultra but  where the Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition excels is not in its hardware but what it has to offer under the hood. 

5 Reasons why the Galaxy XCover 5 is Perfect for Businesses in Malaysia

Where the Galaxy XCover 5 stands out is that it’s built specifically to cater to the needs of a particular type of business user – field staff who work outdoors and in the field like delivery and shipping personnel, staff like road crews and plantation workers as well as rougher field conditions that would prang a less robust phone.

On a side note, the Samsung Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition isn’t available in the consumer market and you’ll need to source for a quote directly from Samsung. For more details and to request a quotation, check out their official page at https://www.samsung.com/my/business/smartphones/galaxy-xcover5-g525/

With that detail sorted, here’s 5 reasons why the Galaxy XCover 5  Enterprise Edition is ideal for business.

#1 – Built Tough with IP68 and MIL-STD-810H Rated Durability

The Samsung Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition has an armoured outer shell that has an IP68 water and dust resistance rating along with MIL-STD-810H rated military grade levels of toughness. This allows the phone to survive in up to 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 minutes as well as shrug off modest drops to the ground without damage.

Combined, this makes the XCover 5 Enterprise Edition ideal for outdoors work as staff needn’t have to coddle it like a Faberge egg when using it outdoors and with less chance of it getting broken in the field, it’ll be used more often and companies will need to replace it less while keeping it in service longer.

#2 – Glove Compatible Touchscreen

The phone sports a 5.3-inch HD+ display with a 60Hz refresh rate which is more than sufficient for work purposes but what will endear it to enterprise users in the field is that the display has support for gloved touch usage by simply toggling a setting.

That means you can navigate the menus and settings on the XCover 5 Enterprise Edition even when wearing gloves; a necessity in some outdoors work environments. Better yet, the phone has facial recognition too for fast, easy access in the field.

#3 Swappable 3,000mAh Battery

Battery life is a key factor for a phone that’s intended to work hard all day long and the Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition has something that many phones lack – a swappable battery. All you need to do is to pop off the rear backplate and you gain access to a battery pack that you can swap out in seconds.

To make things even more efficient, the base of the phone has a pair of pogo pins, allowing users to dock it into an optional docking station much in the manner of a traditional walkie talkie to charge it in a convenient fashion without having to fiddle about with a cable. 

On its own, the 3,000mAh battery is more than sufficient for all-day use with a rated 13 hours of battery life and in PCMark Work 3.0, it still garnered a respectable 11 hours and 40 minutes of endurance.

#4 Customisable XCover Key

The side of the Samsung Galaxy XCover 5 Enterprise Edition features a customisable button that can be keyed to access any potential app or function on the phone as needed.

More enterprising enterprise users have assigned it as an ersatz walkie talkie button to access a company group chat but other companies have assigned it to access more specific features like a barcode scanner for tallying or to inventory stock.

#5 Extensive five years of security updates

Companies will often keep using an existing device for years at a time beyond the lifespan of a conventional consumer device which is why Samsung Enterprise Edition grade gear will have up to 5-years of security maintenance releases and will be available for purchase and spare parts two years after their initial launch.