Microsoft’s Surface PCs are seeing a big price hike, and cheaper models are disappearing

If you have Waiting Microsoft To update it Surface PC lineup– Maybe with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 Elite processors – I have bad news for you.

Microsoft He is Changing its PC lineup, but doing so by dramatically raising prices. This means you’ll be paying at least $1,500 for Surface devices that launched at $1,000 just two years ago, and Microsoft is no longer offering new Surface devices under $1,000 at all.

The 12-inch Surface Pro tablet that originally started at $799 and the 13-inch Surface Laptop that launched at $899 now cost $1,049 and $1,149, respectively, an increase of $250. Both the 13-inch Surface Laptop and Surface Pro starting in 2024 start at $999 but It rises to $1,199 in 2025 When its entry-level 256GB versions were discontinued; Both now start at $1,499, an increase of $300.

As in the original I mentioned By Windows Central, Microsoft blames “recent increases in memory and component costs” for the price hike. Short supply of RAM and storage chips in particular has wreaked havoc on consumer technology all year. delay some releases, Depletion of existing product inventoryand Raising prices For both small and large companies.

The 2024 Surface updates were a big change for Microsoft’s PCs. They were the first major Surface models to switch from Intel and AMD chips to Arm-based processors, where Arm chips had previously been stuck in side projects like Surface Pro. They showcased years of work Microsoft has done on the Windows x86-to-Arm code translation layer (now called prism) and to encourage third-party developers to create native versions of their Windows applications.

Arm-based computers still seem to work fine, based on… The huge number to Retail listingsbut these price increases make any further comparisons between Microsoft’s lineup and Apple’s Silicon Mac hardware particularly unpleasant. Equivalent MacBook Air M5 It now costs $400 less than a similarly specced Surface Laptop, and nothing in Microsoft’s lineup comes close MacBook NeoValue for money. If we see a Snapdragon

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.