Samsung is aiming a new version of the Galaxy S20 flagship phone at military customers. Dubbed the “Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition”, the chaebol describes its latest blower as “mission ready”. And it certainly looks the part.
The phone is wrapped in a rugged camouflage Juggernaut Case designed to withstand the technological equivalent of a Geneva Conventions breach. It’s also IP68 rated, and thus should be able to withstand an “enhanced interrogation” without giving up the ghost.
The Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition also comes equipped with radios compatible with CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service). This operates on the 3.5GHz band, and despite the name, has portions reserved for military functionality.
There’s also a few software enhancements that’ll cater to the primary audience of SPECOPS soldiers. One feature called “Stealth Mode” turns off all radio communications entirely. It’s a bit like aeroplane mode, except that while the latter will stop you getting told off by cabin crew, the former will help prevent you ending up in a North Korean gulag.
Beyond that, it’s fundamentally a bog-standard Galaxy S20, with few material differences. It uses the same Snapdragon 865 platform, with 12GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Support for Sub-6GHz 5G is also included, which will undoubtedly come in handy, as my paranoid mate told me it’s a deadly bioweapon.
The Tactical Edition also preserves the camera setup of its consumer-focused parent, with a 12MP wide-angle lens, a 12MP ultra-wide-angle, and a 64MP telephoto. Optical image stabilization (OIS) is included on all cameras, save the ultra-wide-angle one. And if nothing else, we can expect any future leaked footage depicting the violent abuse of captured enemies to look extremely sharp.
Jokes aside, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition is just another part of Samsung’s long history of developing kit for the military. It previously made a military-focused spin of its Galaxy S9 smartphone.
And before that, there was even an entire subsidiary of Samsung called Samsung Techwin which made a brisk business selling self-propelled artillery vehicles to the Korean government, as well as components for the K2 Black Panther tank.
The chaebol even helped out in the development of the sci-fi-tastic SGR-A1 automatic sentry gun, which was designed to automatically mow down an invading force from the north without any human involvement.
Samsung has since largely divested itself from the military hardware business, flogging its weapon-building Techwin business to the Hanwha Group in 2015. Since then, the only explosive device it’s produced has been the disastrous Galaxy Note S7. And that wasn’t even on purpose. ®
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source: The Register
