Samsung’s latest phone and tablet hide a swappable battery surprise

By Andy Boxall Published April 14, 2025

We know there are people out there who want to swap a flat or dead battery in their smartphone out for a new, fully charged one. Samsung knows it too, and it’s one of the top features on its new Galaxy XCover7 Pro rugged smartphone. But have you ever thought about doing the same thing on your tablet? Amazingly, Samsung’s offering the same feature on its new rugged Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro tablet too. 

The Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro has a massive 10,100mAh battery inside, and Samsung will sell you a replacement so you can change it on the go, plus it has an unusual Dual Hot-Swap feature, where you can change the batteries without the tablet powering down in the process. It can even operate without a battery at all, and just run on a mains power supply. If you’re wondering why you’d need such functionality, you may not. The Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro and Galaxy XCover7 Pro are primarily designed for use by businesses and out in the field, where constant up-time may be essential. 

The rugged credentials include an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, plus both devices meet the MIL-STD-810H military toughness requirements, and have Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ over the screens. We really like the look of the extra-tough S Pen stylus that comes with the Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro, which adds an IP68 rating for the ability to operate in the wet to go with its new, chunky rough-and-tumble style. 

What about the rest of the specs? The Galaxy Cover7 Pro has a 6.6-inch, 120Hz LCD screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor, and 6GB of RAM, plus a microSD card slot to increase the 128GB of internal storage space by up to 2TB. There’s a 50-megapixel main and 8MP wide-angle camera on the back, a 13MP selfie camera, and a 4,350mAh replaceable battery too. It runs on Android 15, has Samsung’s Knox security, and is compatible with Samsung’s DeX desktop system. 

The Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro has a 10.1-inch, 120Hz LCD screen and the same processor as the smartphone, but with the option to choose either a 6GB/128GB or 8GB/256GB RAM and storage space configuration. There’s a 12MP main camera on the back and an 8MP camera on the front, plus there’s stereo speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It also has 5G connectivity, Android 15, Samsung Knox, and DeX compatibility. 

Both rugged Samsung devices will be available from April 2025, but no prices have been announced. It’s also possible Samsung may sell the Galaxy Cover7 Pro and Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro to the general public in addition to its business partners in the future.