Canadian oilfields wreck phones where Samsung rugged ones survive

Imagine working in a remote oil or gas field and experiencing a mobile device failure five hours away from the nearest road. Imagine experiencing device failures three or more times a year. Needless to say, the survivability of mobile devices is more crucial to some users than others. Samsung's response is the Xcover and Tab Active lineups.

Samsung Canada recently shared the stunning results of a study that shows just how harsh conditions can be in remote oil and gas fields. 40 percent of oil and gas workers have had their mobile devices break three or more times in the past year. And three out of four workers say that their mobile devices are critical to their jobs, which makes this high failure rate that much more of an issue.

Device failures in oilfields have caused significant delays for nearly two-thirds of workers. In such harsh conditions, mobile devices become much more prone to damage. Some common failures include:

Workers who have experienced device failures lost entire days traveling back for replacements. All this is to say that device durability is of much greater importance in certain situations, and this is one of them.

While sharing this data, Samsung Canada offered a solution, i.e., its rugged mobile devices, and explained why its Xcover smartphones and Tab Active tablets are the perfect choices for workers who need to maintain access to smart mobile devices in extreme conditions.

For the most part, the average Galaxy phone and tablet owner cares about performance and the software experience the most. Build quality also matters, but this study shows that there are different levels to it. Some users need that extra ruggedness, even if it comes at a cost.

Although the Tab Active and Xcover lineups don't offer the most powerful internals, they are equipped with the best tools to survive rough environments, which makes them the best choices for workers in more extreme conditions. Their hot-swappable batteries are also a rare quality in consumer-grade devices.

One size doesn't fit all, and although the Tab Active and Xcover lineups aren't the most popular among average consumers, they certainly play their part in niche markets.