Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days are less than two weeks away, but while we wait, we found some great deals on iPads (up to 25% off) and we also checked in on the state of Android phones.
The US market is served by only a few makers and some aren’t carrying their weight. The vanilla Google Pixel 10 is on sale right now, but the $100 discount seems pretty light.
For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 256GB costs the same as a Pixel 10 128GB (note the storage). The Pixel is shorter and narrower but thicker and heavier (204g vs. 163g for the Galaxy). This is because the S25 Edge brings a larger 6.7” 1440p+ display (vs. 6.3” 1080p+) and it’s an LTPO panel at that. Additionally, the Galaxy has the more capable chipset (Snapdragon 8 Elite vs. Tensor G5). The battery is noticeably smaller, 3,900mAh vs. 4,970mAh, but, embarrassingly for the Pixel, the Galaxy lasted longer in our tests (12:06h Active use score vs. 9:58h).
The camera situation is complicated – the Pixel 10 is the first vanilla model with a tele camera, a 10.8MP 5x/112mm module. However, it only has a small 1/2.0” 48MP sensor in the main and a 13MP 1/1.31” sensor in the ultra-wide. Samsung skipped the telephoto on the S25 Edge, relying on the 200MP main instead (1/1.3” sensor), which is joined by a 12MP 1/2.55” ultra-wide.
Additionally, the vanilla Samsung Galaxy S25 is a bit cheaper than the vanilla Pixel 10. The Galaxy is smaller despite the similarly-sized screen (6.2” vs. 6.3”) and it’s noticeably lighter (162g vs. 204g). And it does have a telephoto camera, though the 10MP module has a shorter 3x/67mm lens. The battery is smaller (4,000mAh vs. 4,970mAh), but the Samsung once again outlasts the Google phone (13:09h vs. 9:58h).
The refreshed basic iPad is currently $50 off. This makes it $50 cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Lite – the Apple tablet has the better quality panel (11” IPS LCD, 264ppi vs. 10.9” TFT LCD, 228ppi) and the refresh rate on neither is great (60Hz vs. 90Hz). Neither tablet is great for heavy multitasking, but at least the iPad has basic video out capabilities. The Galaxy stands out with expandable storage (microSD card) and more AI features.
The iPad Air (2025) is available in 11” and 13” sizes and serve as a great middle ground in Apple’s tablets – they are powerful (Apple M3 chips) and support multitasking, including Stage Manager for external displays. However, their 60Hz IPS LCDs feel outdated. Both are $150 off, the larger model is $200 more than the small one at equal storage.
At the 11” size, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 costs noticeably more than the iPad Air. Unlike the Lite model, this has full Samsung DeX capabilities, on its own screen and on external screens. An advantage common to the Galaxy Tabs over the iPads is that they have expandable storage, so you can save some cash this way. And in the case of the Tab S11, the 256GB model costs the same as the 128GB model right now (and in turn, the 512GB model costs what the 256GB should have).
Samsung skipped the 12.4” size this year, but you can still find the Galaxy Tab S10+. This one uses an older chipset, the Dimensity 9300+ compared to 9400+ on the S11 series. It’s still powerful enough for most tasks and that comes in handy with DeX multitasking. The two Tab S models have 120Hz OLED displays, by the way, which gives them a leg up over the iPad Airs.
But not over the iPad Pros (11” and 13”), which have tandem OLED displays (120Hz). They also have the more powerful Apple M4 chipset, though iPadOS is not the best-equipped to make full use of it. Both iPad Pros are $100 off right now, but the larger model costs $300 more than the smaller one with the same storage.
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