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You can blame AI for a lot of things, starting with… The environmental impact of massive AI data centers It consumes huge amounts of land, water and energy Back up ramp This is what ads are made of Social media is worse. And now, as you watch your High electricity bill While sitting through Terrible commercials for McDonald’s and Coca-ColaYou can blame AI for the rising cost of computers.
The boom in artificial intelligence has led to… Lack of computer memorywhere AI companies are grabbing RAM and storage to help power thousands of servers in their growing number of data centers. This increased demand has led to a sharp rise in the price of random access memory (RAM) – the same RAM found in laptops and desktop computers. Computer manufacturers appear willing to pass this cost on to consumers.
According to reports, Dell will raise the prices of its computers by 15 to 20% or more in mid-December, and Lenovo also said that its prices will rise at the beginning of the new year. You can expect other PC vendors to follow suit.
If you want to get ahead of higher costs that are expected to arrive sooner rather than later, I have a few suggestions:
1. If you’re shopping for a computer, don’t delay
If you have the money for your next laptop and can buy it before the end of the year, I’d make the purchase now – before the price goes up. By the time next year’s models are announced in CES In a few weeks, it may be too late. And there are a lot of great laptops available now (more on that soon).
2. Buy as much pre-installed RAM as possible
Most laptops have soldered-in RAM that you can’t upgrade after purchase, so this is a good rule of thumb anytime when purchasing a laptop. But it’s better advice (if I do say so myself) at this particular time, with prices rising. If you can cram 32GB or even 64GB of RAM into the laptop you’re eyeing, I say go for it.
For gaming laptops that have user-replaceable RAM that is not soldered to the motherboard, it may be a good idea to fill these DIMM slots when configuring a model for purchase. Because if you’re planning to buy a gaming laptop with minimal RAM now, but leave a DIMM slot or two free to add more RAM later, you’ll likely find yourself paying more for it than you are paying now.
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Five laptop recommendations
To help you find a laptop before prices rise, here are five laptops that I recommend without hesitation. Each won our Editors’ Choice award this year, and each offers up to 32GB of RAM or gives you the option to increase the base 16GB allotment to 32GB or 64GB.
the HP Omnibook 5 14 and Asus ZenBook A14 They are thin and lightweight laptops with sleek all-metal designs and beautiful OLED displays. Each of them offers a Qualcomm Snapdragon X series processor And exceptional battery life. The ZenBook A14 I reviewed came with 32GB of RAM, and the OmniBook 5 14 only had 16GB of RAM. But HP lets you configure the OmniBook 5 14 with 32GB of RAM while keeping the cost under $1,000.
For players, Lenovo Legion 5i 10th Generation It offers a high-resolution OLED display that expands its appeal beyond just gaming. Its price remained steady at $1,569 at Newegg. There’s no telling how long the price will stay, but that’s great for a mid-range gaming laptop with RTX 5060 graphics.
Lenovo also did the best CNET two-in-one reviewed this year almost perfectly Lenovo Yoga 9i 2 in 1 Aura Edition.
Rounding out my recommendations is my favorite MacBook, 15 inch air, Which provides the optimal balance between screen size and system weight, along with Apple’s powerful and efficient M4 processor. I reviewed it with 16GB of RAM, but you can expand it to 24GB or 32GB before purchasing.
For more, check out The best laptops of 2025, Best Windows Laptops, The best MacBooksand Best budget gaming laptops, Best two in one and Best laptops battery life.