The 5 Best Samsung Options For Every Type Of Phone User

Samsung is the most popular Android vendor worldwide, and its phones are easy to recommend. But choosing a Samsung phone can be difficult due to the sheer number of phones it offers. Whereas its largest competitor, Apple, only releases a few new iPhones each year, Samsung released more than a dozen new phones in 2025 alone. There were four flagships, including the extra-slim S25 Edge, while the S25 Fan Edition came out later in the year. Samsung also had a large foldable portfolio, including the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7, as well as the later Z Flip 7 Fan Edition. Most recently, the double-unfolding Galaxy Trifold made waves at CES, and that's to say nothing of the myriad phones released under the budget-friendly A-series label.

Samsung's strategy is to cater to as many users as possible, ensuring that there's something for everyone in its lineup. Even so, Samsung's best and worst phones can be hard to tell apart. If you're looking to get your hands on a new Samsung Galaxy phone in 2026, the real challenge is figuring out which one suits your style the best. I've had hands-on experience with a wide array of Samsung's devices over the years, and the current crop is no exception. With that in mind, I've cross-referenced my opinions with those of other reviewers who had more time to deep dive into particular models, all to figure out which Galaxy handset is best for different types of people. Whether you're looking for a cutting-edge foldable, a powerhouse flagship, or a budget phone that still has plenty of features, here are five Samsung smartphones for five different kinds of phone users.

The best Samsung smartphone for power users is the Galaxy S25 Ultra, although this recommendation comes with the caveat that I'm writing this mid-January 2026, before the next generation of feature-packed Galaxy S26 smartphones launches. Either way, this is the device that has stayed in my pocket through 2025, and while it's not perfect, it's close enough. I adore the titanium build, which makes the phone feel practically indestructible in the hand and gives the side rails some nice texture. I'm also a big fan of the rounded corners compared to the previous S24 Ultra, even though it does make the S25 Ultra look a bit more like an iPhone.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is a performance beast, too, thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and 12 GB of onboard RAM. Although I do notice some overheating from time to time, this phone has no trouble handling games, video editing, or anything else I can throw at it. All of it runs on a gorgeous, 6.9-inch dynamic AMOLED display.

My main gripe with the S25 Ultra is battery life. Samsung opted to saddle its top-end flagship with the same 5,000-mAh cell it used in the S24 Ultra, and the result is that the S25 Ultra dies on me far more frequently than previous Samsung flagships, likely thanks to the power-hungry processor. Thus, I find myself carefully turning off features I don't need whenever I leave home for an extended period of time. And then there's the matter of the S Pen: Samsung removed the powerful Bluetooth features from its signature stylus, which means you can no longer remotely use the pen to take photos or control your phone.

Samsung kicked off the folding phone trend with the original Galaxy Z Fold in 2019, and although Chinese competition has emerged to challenge it, the company remains atop the foldable food chain in Western markets. The Galaxy Z Fold 7, released in mid-2025, has been well-received by phone enthusiasts. Our own Galaxy Fold 7 review praised the device for its thin design, vivid inner and outer displays, and rock-solid performance. Folded up, it's about the same thickness as any other modern flagship smartphone, which may entice those who were turned off by the bulkiness of previous models. Unfolded, it's a very thin tablet with an 8-inch, high refresh rate, AMOLED panel. It's equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, the standard-bearer mobile processor for 2025, which allows it to fly through multitasking and gaming with ease.

There's no denying that the Z Fold 7 is one of the best foldables on the market, but it's still a foldable, which means it still comes with an extra set of considerations. The inner screen remains susceptible to damage, even from a fingernail. And although Samsung stepped up ingress protection with this model to include an IP48 dust and water resistance rating, it's still a bad idea to bring this phone to the beach or anywhere else it might be exposed to dirt and dust. But if that doesn't concern you, and you feel you would benefit from having a small tablet in your pocket, then this might be the Samsung phone for you.

For those in search of an affordable Samsung Galaxy phone, it's hard to find a better deal than the Galaxy A17, which costs At $170 at the time of this writing. Compared to its premium phones, Samsung has made several compromises to keep the A17's price low. Powered by the lower-midrange Exynos 1330 chip, the A17 may struggle to play graphically intense games or edit multi-track video projects, but it gets the job done for day-to-day use, albeit with minor stuttering, according to reviews. It powers a 6.7-inch, 1080p, Super AMOLED display with a refresh rate of up to 90Hz, though reviewers have noted that it doesn't get terribly bright.

The back panel is plastic rather than the glass found on more expensive models, but that's not necessarily a drawback. Glass breaks far more easily, and most people interested in the Galaxy A17 presumably cannot afford expensive repairs. It has a large 5,000 mAh battery, which is the same capacity as the premium Galaxy S25 Ultra. There are three rear cameras, with a 50 megapixel main lens, a 5 megapixel ultrawide, and a 2 megapixel macro shooter. The spec sheet is rounded out with 128 GB of storage in the base model and 4 GB of RAM.

This is clearly a budget spec sheet, but considering that it costs little more than the amount you'd pay in sales tax for one of Samsung's most premium devices, the trade-offs are worth it for cash-strapped consumers. It will also receive seven years of updates, so while the specs aren't very future-proof, the OS at least is. However, smartphone shoppers on a budget should consider other brands, which offer budget-conscious devices with better processors.

Samsung's newest smartphone (as of this writing) is meant for those who have fat stacks of Benjamins burning a hole in their pocket. I say that for two reasons: first, this phone is prohibitively expensive, costing around $2,500 in its home market of South Korea; secondly, it might break if you so much as look at it wrong. I am speaking about the Galaxy Z TriFold, of course. Samsung released this monstrosity of a foldable at the very end of 2025, and it should be available stateside in 2026.

Aside from its astonishing three-panel, foldable design, nothing much sets this phone apart from cheaper options. Its processor, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, is already out of date  — it's the same chip found in the Galaxy S25 that came out at the start of 2025. Its internal display is a 10-inch, 2160p display with a pixel density of 269 pixels-per-inch. Nothing to sneeze at, but again, nothing special. The issue is that it's far more fragile than any other option on this list, including other foldables. You are paying purely for the novelty of having a full-sized tablet in your pocket. It's a bleeding-edge device meant for early adopters.

If you see this phone fitting into your lifestyle and don't mind shelling out $2,500 for a smartphone, you may love it. But don't forget, that's enough money to buy a pretty beefy gaming PC (yes, even with RAM price hikes), or a relatively high-end television.  But maybe you've already got those things and still can't seem to burn through your cash. In that case, you're Samsung's target audience for the Galaxy Z TriFold.

There's nothing wrong with being a middle child, and the Galaxy S25+ is proof of that. Not only does it include the same flagship processor and 12 GB of RAM as the much more expensive S25 Ultra, but it doesn't make any compromises other than a smaller battery and display than the Ultra. Both, however, are still significantly better than what you get on the cheaper base-model S25. Whereas the S25+ retains a QHD resolution on its panel (again, matching the Ultra spec for spec), the S25 settles for 1080p. As for battery life, the S25+ model has a 4,900 mAh cell compared to 5,000 mAh in the Ultra and 4,000 mAh in the S25.

The Galaxy S25+ also runs the same version of Samsung's One UI Android skin as its bigger brother, laden to overflowing with all the same powerful features as its more expensive siblings. Whether you're looking for the latest AI features or want to play the latest and most graphically intense games from the Play Store, you won't run into any trouble. You're also getting a triple-camera array with a 50 megapixel main shooter, a 12 megapixel ultrawide lens, and a 10 megapixel telephoto. It's not quite the same 200 megapixel setup as the Ultra, but both phones bin down to 12 megapixels by default, anyway. Unless you're on a very tight budget, or have a particular need for a folding screen, an S Pen stylus, or a powerful camera, many reviewers agree that the Galaxy S25+ is the easiest Samsung phone to recommend for most people.