Nowadays you can buy a Mini PC for just 150 euros. Or a laptop for just 300 or 400 euros. That’s going to end. According to an analysis by the specialized firm Gartner, Entry PCs priced under $500 will disappear by 2028 due to the RAM crisis caused by artificial intelligence.
It also offers a series of quite worrying data. RAM and storage prices will rise by 130% by the end of 2026. This will cause the average price of a PC to rise by 17%, compared to 2025, and that of a mobile phone, by 13%. And RAMeggedon has only just begun.
As you probably already know, it is all due to the voracity of AI companies, which They have purchased all the RAM and storage memory for 2026 and part of 2027 for their data centers for AI, leaving the rest out of stock.
A memory crisis that lasts a long time
No RAM, no Flash storage memory, no SSD or hard drives, all computing devices are going to be affectedbecause everyone uses one or more of these components.
Two things are going to happen, they are already happening. First, that no new products are launchedwaiting for the storm to pass. Nvidia has canceled the RTX 5000 Super cards and delayed the RTX 6000 until 2028. Valve has done the same with the Steam Machine, and has stopped selling the Steam Deck. Mobile phones and PCs from 2026 come out with less RAM or storage memory than their equivalent from the previous year. And more expensive.
Brands like Lenovo or Dell have announced price increases starting in March. Raspberry has already done it, some of its boards cost up to 70% more.
HP said a few days ago that The influence of RAM on the price of a PC has doubled in the last quarter. At the end of 2025 it represented 17% of the entire PC price, today it is already 36%.
Logically, If prices skyrocket, people don’t buy. According to Gartner analysis, PC sales will fall by 10.4% in 2026, and mobile sales by 8.4%. If this trend continues in 2027, By 2028 PCs for less than $500 will not exist, according to this market study.
Input computers are very important in the educational field, for multimedia projects, research, hobbies, programming, etc. People with low incomes are going to be the biggest losers.
Artificial intelligence promises us paradise, but at the moment all it offers are layoffs, professions at risk of disappearing, and price increases.