While today’s smartphones may boast just as many pixels as your television and a faster processor than your PC, they’re not great at going outdoors. Drop any of them onto hard concrete without a case and you can almost guarantee you’re in for a pricey repair bill. That’s not the case with the new Samsung Xcover 2, however.

Announcing just this morning, the Xcover 2 is “the ideal smartphone for active explorers who are enjoying outdoor lifestyles and seeking a durable mobile device with essential smartphone capabilities.”

Samsung has today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012, which slightly exceed the estimations that were set by the Korean company earlier this month. It recorded an operating profit of 8.84 trillion won (approx. $8.27 billion) during the three-month period, on 56.06 trillion won (approx. $54.45 billion) in revenue. That’s a 10% increase in profit over the previous quarter, and a whopping 89.3% increase in profit over the fourth quarter of 2011.

HTC has today announced the Desire U, a new, mid-range Android smartphone that will make its debut in the company’s native Taiwan. Packing a 4-inch WVGA display and a 1GHz processor, the handset comes with an unlocked, SIM-free price tag of just $275, making it a very competitive device.

Samsung first unveiled the Galaxy Grand, a dual-SIM smartphone with mid-range specifications, which is aimed mostly at emerging markets, back in December. Just a month later, the company has unveiled another model for its native South Korea, and it comes with a number of significant improvements such as a quad-core processor and 4G LTE connectivity.

The Huawei Ascend P2, a new high-end Android smartphone that’s expected to get its grand unveiling at Mobile World Congress next month, has already shown its face in a leaked press shot. A previous rumor claimed the device would be more of a midrange handset than a high-end contender, but according to the latest information, there’s nothing midrange about this device.