Entry level PCs costing less than $500 ‘will disappear by 2028’, research firm predicts
Users are also more likely to stick with older hardware, raising concerns over security vulnerabilities
The sub-$500 PC segment will “disappear” within two years, a research and advisory firm predicts.
In a new report on the state of the PC market, research firm Gartner suggests that the continued global surge in memory prices will not only affect PC sales for this year, but also subsequent years.
The report projects that worldwide PC shipments throughout 2026 will decline 10.4% compared to last year, and that smartphone shipments will also decline by 8.4%.
It also projects a 130% surge in DRAM and SSD storage prices by the end of 2026, which will increase PC prices by 17% and smartphone prices by 13% compared to their prices in 2025.
Because of this, PC memory costs are expected to take up 23% of the total bill-of-materials of a new PC, compared to 16% last year. This will make it harder for retailers to absorb costs, meaning entry-level PCs and laptops – which usually have a low profit margin as it is – will no longer be worth selling because the retailer will be making a loss on them.
“Ultimately, we expect the sub-$500 entry-level PC segment will disappear by 2028,” senior director analyst Ranjit Atwal said.
The firm also expects this to have a knock-on effect on existing hardware, with users choosing to keep using their older devices and computers instead of buying newer highly-priced ones.
“This is the steepest contraction in device shipments witnessed in over a decade,” Atwal said. “Higher prices will narrow the range of devices available, prompting buyers to hold on to devices for longer, fundamentally altering upgrade cycles.”
Gartner expects the lifetime of a PC to increase by 15% for businesses and 20% for consumers by the end of 2026, but warns that by using their existing PCs for longer, this “will further raise concerns over increased security vulnerabilities and [the] challenges of managing older devices”.
The entire tech industry is bracing for what some publications are dubbing ‘RAMmageddon’, as memory is becoming increasingly scarce and exponentially more expensive.
Analysts and tech companies are both predicting that the situation could have drastic effects for the entire tech industry, with companies such as Apple and Tesla warning that production will be constrained in the future.
Steam Deck has been frequently out of stock on the Steam store, as Valve has warned it could be a regular occurrence “due to memory and storage shortages”, while Bloomberg reported last month that Sony is considering holding back the release of PlayStation 6 to 2028 or 2029, given that the bottleneck of memory production could have a large impact on the availability and cost of new hardware.
