Are you looking to upgrade your smartphone or trade up to a new laptop soon? This may not be the best time to do it. 2026 is set to be a turbulent year for tech, with price rises expected across the board. Games consoles, TVs, smart home kit and even new cars are set to leave more of a dent in your wallet than they otherwise would.
The memory modules used by pretty much every consumer gadget are in short supply, which has pushed up wholesale prices on the remaining production capacity. Manufacturers are now going to pass those higher prices onto you.
Here’s what’s causing the cost increases and which gadgets stand to be most affected. I’ve also got a few tips on how to avoid overpaying for your tech this year.
Why will tech be more expensive in 2026?
It’s all AI’s fault, essentially.
The tech industry’s obsession with artificial intelligence has created a gold rush, with investors sending stock prices stratospheric. Nvidia is now the world’s most valuable company, being valued at a ludicrous $4.5 trillion; it makes over ten times more from AI hardware than it does from consumer graphics cards.
That unprecedented investment has let AI-related businesses build bigger and more powerful data centres. All those servers need memory – lots and lots of it. Firms with the funds have been able to hoover up the world’s supply of DRAM and NAND modules (the memory chips used for memory and flash storage) leaving the consumer tech world to fight over the scraps.
In the past few months alone, the price of RAM modules has reportedly increased by several hundred percent.
The increased demand for – and higher margins of – enterprise-grade hardware has in turn made memory manufacturers like Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix shift their production away from consumer chips. Samsung’s semiconductor division reportedly refused a RAM order from its own Electronics subsidiary for the new Galaxy phone range, while Micron folded its Crucial brand entirely, ending a 30 year run of PC gaming RAM and SSDs.
New production facilities won’t be fully up and running for at least another year, and will take a further six months to meaningfully affect supply. That could mean multiple years of higher prices, unless the AI bubble bursts.
What sort of gadgets will cost more?
Pretty much all of them. Smartphones and laptops will feel the pinch immediately, as memory and storage make up a considerable portion of their bill of materials (BOM): as much as 20% in a mid-range mobile, or 15% in a flagship, according to industry analysts IDC.
The biggest brands like Apple and Samsung likely have long-term deals with memory makers guaranteeing supply through 2026, so it could be 2027 before consumers really feel the pinch. It does mean the Galaxy S26 and iPhone 18 models are unlikely to see RAM or storage size increases from the current generation, though, in order to stretch that supply as far as possible.
PC hardware, games consoles and gaming handhelds all rely heavily on memory modules. While Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo haven’t announced price rises yet, rumours suggest the next-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles could be delayed from an expected 2027-2028 launch window.
Smaller brands and DIY computer builders could be the hardest hit, but you should also expect TVs to feel the impact. There could even be a double-whammy where new models cost more and the outgoing sets don’t see any significant price reductions.
How to avoid paying extra for tech in 2026
The obvious answer is to avoid upgrading your gadgets until memory prices and availability stabilise. If you can eke another year of use from the smartphone currently in your pocket, things might have improved by the time you come to replace it.
If that’s not an option – maybe your battery has bitten the dust or your screen is so cracked now you can barely make out your incoming messages – consider buying a 2025 handset instead. There are some proper bargains to be had if you shop around.
With no new graphics card generation yet, PC gamers might want to dial the graphics settings down on their games rather than replace their GPUs. The latest processors from Intel and AMD also only offer slightly faster performance than the outgoing chips (outside of AI performance, which you might not even care about), so there’s not as much to gain from buying new components as there has been in previous years.
Shopping second-hand could also be an option. Let someone else swallow the increased costs on new components, and buy their old kit for a more reasonable price.
- Related: 5 tech and gadget New Year’s resolutions I will fail to keep in 2026
Read the full article here
