Recently, the topic of “budget laptops under $700 nearly extinct” has sparked widespread discussion. Those affordable models that once let you pick and choose for $400–500 are now hard to find on mainstream channels. Popular gaming laptops have seen price jumps of over $700 in just half a year, significantly raising the bar for everyday consumers looking to upgrade. Even with subsidies and discounts, high-end notebooks are commonly breaking the $1,400 mark. Multiple dealers have stated plainly that the price hike will last at least a year, advising non-urgent users to hold off on buying.
Looking at the real-world market, this round of price increases is far more aggressive and broad than anything we’ve seen before. According to dealer feedback, the starting price jump for complete systems is now $100 to $140. Last year saw only minor tweaks, but this year, prices have skyrocketed across the board.
Take Lenovo’s gaming laptop lineup as an example. The “Legion” series has seen average prices rise by about $700. Models that originally cost around $1,400 are now quoted at $2,100 to $2,250. Some specific models have jumped $530 in just four months, with popular ones experiencing extreme daily price fluctuations—sometimes changing from one day to the next.
Checking e-commerce platforms reveals that Lenovo’s Legion series, even with national subsidies factored in, now generally sits around $1,680. Even thin-and-light office laptops focused on value, like the Lenovo Xiaoxin Pro 16, have seen their average transaction prices surge. By the end of 2025, the mainstream average price hovered around $670; by 2026, new models have jumped to the $1,050 to $1,100 range.
While laptops under $700 haven’t completely disappeared, the market is now sharply divided. Currently, it breaks down into three main categories: thin-and-light office laptops and entry-level study notebooks still offer plenty of options under $700, but their configurations are often stripped down—most models come with just 8GB of RAM and low-capacity storage. Meanwhile, high-performance gaming laptops have vanished entirely from the $700 price range, and many affordable new models have been discontinued. Overall, thin-and-light laptops have generally gone up by $100 to $140, while gaming laptops have seen increases ranging from $280 to $700. Upgrading an older PC with separate memory or SSDs has also become prohibitively expensive, and DIY builds offer much less value for money.
Major brands like Lenovo, ASUS, Dell, and HP have collectively raised prices since early 2026. ASUS has bumped up its entire laptop lineup by 15% to 25%, with Dell and HP following suit. Apple even globally increased MacBook prices by about 20% in June. The latest data shows that in the first half of 2026, online sales of laptops in China dropped by over 40% year-on-year. Consumers’ willingness to buy has been significantly dampened by soaring prices. Many people who might have considered an upgrade are now choosing to prolong the life of their old machines, leading to a surge in both transaction volumes and repair demand in second-hand markets like Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei.
This round of laptop price hikes isn’t just about one brand adjusting its prices. It’s a direct result of a structural surge in costs for core upstream components. In 2026, a 32GB DDR5 memory kit has skyrocketed from around $125 last year to nearly $560—an increase of over 300%. A 1TB mainstream SSD has gone from $57 to $133, a jump of 132%. Memory chips now account for more than 35% of the total bill of materials (BOM) for a laptop, up from about 15% in 2025. This dramatic rise in storage costs means manufacturers are essentially losing money on every low-cost model they produce, leading them to collectively cut back on entry-level product lines.
Why the sudden shortage of memory chips? The answer lies in the explosive demand for AI computing power squeezing production capacity. As a high-speed memory exclusive to AI servers, HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) demand has soared. The three major memory manufacturers—Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—have shifted 70% to 80% of their advanced production capacity to HBM, significantly reducing the supply of consumer-grade memory. A single AI server uses 8 to 10 times the DRAM of a regular server. In the arms race for computing power, these manufacturers prioritize the more profitable HBM and data center orders, systematically shrinking the supply of general-purpose DRAM and NAND. This widening supply-demand gap drives prices ever higher, eventually hitting consumers at the retail level.
In the past, the memory industry followed a typical three-to-four-year cycle: consumer electronics demand drove up prices, manufacturers expanded production, leading to oversupply and price crashes, then they cut production, and the cycle repeated. But this time, it’s a structural demand driven by AI, with supply lagging far behind. The three major manufacturers are acting like an oligopoly, controlling production, and locking up capacity with long-term agreements. This has created what some call a “super cycle” that doesn’t fit traditional patterns.
Most analysts predict that new memory fab capacity won’t be fully available until the second half of 2027 at the earliest. So, for at least the next year and a half, memory prices are unlikely to drop significantly. Industry insiders also caution that this price hike isn’t a short-term blip; the cycle could last until the end of 2027. If you’re waiting for prices to come down before buying a new laptop, you’ll probably just end up paying more later.
