Why Is Tech Getting So Expensive?

Have you tried to buy a new laptop lately? If you have, you'll know exactly where this post is going, and if you haven't, well, brace yourself!

Over the last year the price of pretty much anything with a chip in it has been heading one way, and that's up. Laptops, desktops, tablets, phones, the lot. And the culprit is something most people never give a second thought to when they buy a computer, the memory & storage inside it.

So what's going on? In a word, AI. All those AI services everyone is using need enormous data centres, and those data centres are packed full of servers that eat memory (RAM) and SSD (solid state drive) storage for breakfast. There are only a handful of companies in the world that actually make memory chips, and they've been switching their factories over to make the high end memory the AI servers need, because in all honesty that's where the money is. Less memory being made for laptops & phones, more people fighting over what's left, and I think you can guess what happens to the price?

The numbers are frankly eye watering. TrendForce, who track this sort of thing, forecast memory prices jumping by 90 to 95% in the first three months of this year alone, the biggest quarterly rise they've ever recorded. Gartner reckon memory has gone from around 16% of the cost of building a PC to 23%, and expect PC prices overall to be about 17% higher by the end of 2026. Even Apple, who normally keep their pricing pretty steady, came out and said they'd "never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly". When Apple says that, you know it's bad!

Then on to the bit that worries me most. When the cost of the parts goes up, the cheapest machines are the first to suffer, simply because there's no margin left in them to soak up the extra cost. So manufacturers are dropping their lower spec models and concentrating on the more expensive ones. Gartner are even predicting that the sub-$500 laptop (roughly £400 in our money) will have disappeared altogether by 2028. Apple haven't escaped it either, back in May the entry level Mac mini was dropped only to be reintroduced later in the year with an extra £200 on top, and in June the MacBook Neo, launched in March as Apple's cheapest laptop ever at £599, went up in price to £699 only three months after it came out.

So what are people doing about it? A lot are hanging on to what they've got for longer, Gartner expect people to keep their computers around 20% longer than they used to, and a lot more are turning to refurbished. That's no bad thing in my mind, keeping perfectly good kit in use and out of landfill is something I've championed for years?

But not all refurbished is equal. There are plenty of sellers out there, some great & some not so great, and it's not always easy to know what you're getting or where it's been.

My preferred route, and I'm sure this won't surprise anyone who knows me, is Apple Certified Refurbished. Every machine goes through Apple's own refurbishment process, it's fully tested, any faulty parts are replaced with genuine Apple parts, it's wiped clean, and it comes with a full one year warranty just like a new one. Peace of mind, straight from the source.

We're currently buying a lot of MacBook Neos this way. At the time of writing a refurbished Neo is £599, or £679 with Touch ID, which is exactly what a brand new one cost when it launched back in March! For everyday use it's hard to beat.

The only catch? Stock. Apple can only sell what comes back to them, and when it's gone it's gone, so some days we're refreshing the page waiting for one to appear. Patience is a virtue, or so I'm told 💻

Will prices come back down? Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you need a new machine and want to make your budget go further, as always we're happy to help, contact us today.