#pc-prices

#pc-prices

The Gaming Tablet 5 Pro is said to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset and feature a liquid cooling system, enhancing performance during gaming sessions.

Motorola has enacted price increases of up to 50 percent on the rest of its 2026 Moto G lineup, indicating a shift in pricing strategy for budget smartphones.

After Google released its TurboQuant compression algorithm, which can purportedly drastically reduce the amount of memory required for certain AI workflows, stock prices for memory manufacturers dropped significantly.

"At present, the total cost of the product has far exceeded our selling price, even approaching twice the price we originally set."

US PC shipments are set to fall by 13 percent this year thanks to the ongoing memory and storage crisis, with budget PCs hardest hit. Memory and storage costs will see at least a 60 percent increase during Q1 2026, compounding last year's rises of 40 to 70 percent.

Speculations on what the Steam Deck 2 might be like have been put on pause - people are now more focused on what is going on with the current generation Steam Deck - it is out of stock in several regions. Valve hasn't come out with an official statement yet, but last night the Steam stores in the US and Canada started showing all three variants of the Deck as "Out of Stock".

Memory shortages will persist well into 2027. While we anticipate some easing of prices beginning in 2028, the market is unlikely to return to the pricing levels seen in 2025.

AI-driven memory and storage price hikes have been the defining feature of the PC industry in 2026, and hobbyists have been hit the hardest-companies like Apple with lots of buying power have been able to limit the price increases for their PCs, phones, and other gadgets so far, but smaller outfits like Valve and Raspberry Pi haven't been so lucky.

Do you have a phone in your pocket you'd like to upgrade in the next few years? Fancy a game console or handheld? A laptop, perhaps? Will you need a new router, whether you're purchasing outright or renting from your ISP? Each of these devices is expected to have shortages, price hikes, or both in 2026. And even if you don't plan to buy, you depend on goods and services from others who'll be paying more to upgrade their devices.

Memory now accounts for 35 percent of the cost of materials it needs to build a PC, up from between 15 and 18 percent last quarter. And the company expects RAM's contribution will rise through the year.