Samsung has announced what appears to be a ruggedised version of the Galaxy S20 geared toward US service members.

Called the Samsung Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition, it's described as a “mission-ready military smartphone", and the promo materials for it are clearly all about the military. But, from what we can tell, it's a standard S20 phone with additional software features and security options in a tough case. It features a 6.2-inch OLED display, Snapdragon 865, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, sub-6GHz 5G support, and a triple rear camera system.

Where the Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition differs is it “caters to the unique needs of military operators” by featuring a night-vision mode that turns off the display while you're wearing night-vision goggles, the ability to unlock the phone when it’s in landscape mode, and a so-called stealth mode that can “disable LTE and mute all RF broadcasting for complete off-grid communications”. While that sounds cool, isn't it just airplane mode?

Curiously, there's no mention of how durable the Galaxy S20 actually is in its new Tactical Edition casing. 

Samsung is, however, pitching its Knox security system with dual encryption, which it says meets US government security standards for secure data. Unfortunately, the phone will only be available to “select IT channel partners” later this year. Pricing and a release date weren't announced.