The Best Samsung Phones You Can Buy Today

With Galaxy Unpacked only days away, there’s a temptation to hold off — to wait and see what the S26 brings before committing to anything. But the truth is, Samsung’s current lineup is as strong as it has ever been. The phones on sale right now are not stopgaps or discounted disappointments. They are genuinely excellent devices, available today, and in many cases available at meaningfully lower prices as retailers clear the decks ahead of the new generation.

01 — Galaxy S25 Ultra

The Galaxy S25 Ultra arrived in February 2025 and has held the top of the Android market with remarkable authority ever since. A 6.9-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED display, the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip, and a quad-camera system led by a 200MP main sensor — these are not the specs of a phone that needs an apology. They are the specs of the best Android flagship of 2025, and they remain deeply competitive heading into 2026.

The design is where the S25 Ultra made its most visible break from its predecessors. Rounded corners replaced the angular titanium silhouette of the S24 Ultra, the profile slimmed to 8.2mm, and the overall weight dropped to 218g — meaningful changes for a phone that many people hold in their hand for hours a day. The S Pen remains embedded in the chassis, as it always has been, still unmatched in the Android ecosystem for precision input, annotation, and note-taking.

The camera system received a significant ultrawide upgrade — a new 50MP ultrawide sensor that captures considerably more detail in landscape and architectural photography than the previous generation. The 200MP main sensor and the 5x periscope telephoto carry over largely intact, which is to say they remain among the finest mobile photography tools available.

"Seven years of Android updates. Titanium frame. S Pen in the box. The S25 Ultra isn’t last year’s phone — it’s this year’s benchmark."

Display: 6.9" QHD+ AMOLED, Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite, Main Camera: 200MP + 50MP UW, Battery: 5,000mAh / 45W, RAM: 12GB, S Pen: Included

Buying Tip: With the Galaxy S26 launch imminent, the S25 Ultra is currently seeing its best discounts of the year. Best Buy and Samsung.com have been running up to $250 off, with trade-in deals pushing savings considerably further. If the S25 Ultra spec sheet meets your needs — and for most people it absolutely will — now is the best time to buy it.

02 — Galaxy S25

The standard Galaxy S25 makes a case that is easy to overlook but difficult to argue with once you’ve held it. At 6.2 inches and 162g, it is the most pocketable phone in Samsung’s current flagship lineup, and one of the few genuinely compact flagship smartphones left in an era that increasingly conflates bigger with better.

What makes the S25 more than just a smaller S25 Ultra is what sits inside: the same Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip. The performance gap between the base S25 and the Ultra is negligible for everyday tasks — app launches, web browsing, multitasking, gaming. You’re paying the Ultra premium for the camera system, the S Pen, and the display size, not for meaningful day-to-day speed advantages.

The camera system is a triple-camera arrangement rather than the Ultra’s quad setup, and the main sensor steps down from 200MP. For the vast majority of photography situations — social media, travel, portraits, everyday moments — the results are clean, well-processed, and entirely satisfying.

Display: 6.2" FHD+ AMOLED, Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite, Battery: 4,000mAh, Weight: 162g, Storage: 128 / 256 / 512GB, Starting Price: $799

03 — Galaxy Z Fold 7

The Galaxy Z Fold 7, which launched in the summer of 2025, is the most compelling argument yet that the foldable form factor has matured beyond novelty. Samsung slimmed it down to 8.9mm when folded — barely thicker than the S25 Ultra — and brought the weight to 215g.

The outer display grew to 6.5 inches and finally adopted a proportionate 21:9 aspect ratio, replacing the narrow TV-remote dimensions that made previous cover screens awkward to use. When unfolded, the 8-inch inner AMOLED delivers an experience that simply has no equivalent in the slab phone category — two apps running side by side at full size, a proper taskbar, drag-and-drop between windows.

The headline camera upgrade is significant: Samsung gave the Z Fold 7 the same 200MP main sensor from the Galaxy S25 Ultra — a first for the Fold line. The trade-off is the S Pen, which the Fold 7 dropped in favour of the thinner chassis.

Worth Knowing: The Galaxy Z Fold 7 starts at $1,999 — a significant outlay. It is the right phone for someone who has genuinely outgrown what a slab smartphone can do, and wants a device that works like a tablet the moment they need it to.

Cover Display: 6.5" AMOLED 120Hz, Inner Display: 8.0" AMOLED 120Hz, Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite, Main Camera: 200MP (from S25 Ultra), Thickness (closed): 8.9mm, Starting Price: $1,999

04 — Galaxy A56

The Galaxy A56 is the phone Samsung makes for everyone who looks at the S25 Ultra and feels the price before they feel the excitement. For under $500, it delivers a 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection, a 50MP primary camera that produces genuinely good results in everyday shooting conditions, and battery life that routinely stretches to two full days on a single charge.

The design language borrowed from the flagship S-series is immediately apparent — this is a phone that does not look or feel like a budget device. The Exynos 1580 chip inside is a mid-range processor, and that distinction becomes noticeable in demanding games or sustained heavy workloads. But for the tasks that most people actually use their phones for — messaging, social media, streaming, navigation, photography — the A56 handles everything without hesitation.

The standout specification, and the one that makes the A56 genuinely special in its price bracket, is the battery. An unusually large cell paired with the efficiency of the Exynos 1580 produces battery life that most flagship phones, with their brighter displays and more power-hungry chips, simply cannot match.

"Two days of battery life, a flagship-looking design, and a price that leaves money in your pocket. The A56 doesn’t ask you to compromise — it just asks you to be practical."

Display: 6.7" AMOLED 120Hz, Chip: Exynos 1580, Main Camera: 50MP, Battery: 2-day life / 45W, Protection: Gorilla Glass Victus+, Starting Price: Under $500

Should You Wait for the S26?

It depends — but less than the hype might suggest. If you are upgrading from a Galaxy S23 or older, any of these four phones will represent a significant, tangible improvement that you will feel immediately. Waiting another two to three weeks for the S26 to ship makes sense only if you are specifically interested in the rumoured Privacy Display or the incremental camera refinements Samsung is expected to introduce.

For everyone else, the current lineup is not a consolation prize. The S25 Ultra is one of the finest Android devices ever made. The Z Fold 7 is the most liveable foldable on the market. The S25 is a beautifully balanced compact flagship. And the A56 makes a compelling case that great smartphones don’t have to cost a thousand pounds. Each one is available today, often at its lowest price of the year, and any one of them is a purchase you won’t regret.