Apple’s Big MacBook Price Hikes Just Made It Clear: The RAM Tax Is Here to Stay

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On June 28, 2026

When budget brands raise prices, it’s a warning sign. When tech giants like HP and Samsung do it, it’s a trend. But when Apple bends the knee, you know the tech industry is in a full-blown crisis.

Here’s the simple version of the Apple news this week: Apple just raised the prices on almost anything it makes that has memory inside. (iPhones are safe for now, but just wait for those September releases.) iPad and Mac prices, across the board, just spiked roughly 20% on some models because Apple can no longer fully absorb the skyrocketing costs of memory and storage.

Most notable among these increases is the $100 price bump for the MacBook Neo, Apple’s most affordable laptop, which had been selling for an aggressive $599 since its launch a few months ago. Sadly, that party’s over: The base-model (256GB SSD) MacBook Neo now costs $699, while the 512GB model with Touch ID is now $799.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

It’s not just the budget tier taking a hit; the price hikes scale aggressively across Apple’s entire lineup. The starting model of the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air jumped from $1,099 to $1,299, while the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro climbed from $1,599 to $1,999. (Their larger counterparts also saw relative price increases.)

Beyond laptops, Apple tablets and desktops took big body blows, too. All current-generation iPads are now $100 to $200 more expensive per device, and the Mac Studio saw some of the most brutal adjustments—the base model jumped by $500, and the high-end M3 Ultra configuration factors in a massive $1,300 increase.

Worse yet, Apple has signaled that more increases could follow. This might not be a one-off adjustment.

A Broader Trend, and an Underlying Crisis

This is all part of a pervasive trend across the tech world, raising prices and adjusting retail options due to a global RAM supply crunch. As AI companies pour billions into server farms, excessive demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that makes them tick has tightened the market for the ordinary DRAM used in everyday PCs, tablets, phones—indeed, anything that uses memory modules. Memory supplies are being locked down and gobbled up, with research firm Counterpoint reporting that memory and storage prices have surged fourfold over the last three quarters, and retail prices are jumping in response to suffocating demand.

It’s a trend unlikely to change anytime soon. The supply of consumer memory, particularly leading-edge DDR5, is super-tight, and the projected manufacturing capacity of memory chips is also being snapped up, with top bidders buying out future supplies over the next few years, and even putting up funds to pay for new manufacturing capacity.

(Credit: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

It’s a recipe for huge increases in memory prices for the next several years, at least. To put it in perspective, HP recently noted that memory prices have jumped about 100% sequentially, driving RAM’s share of a PC’s total bill of materials to roughly 35% (up from its historical baseline of 15% to 18%).

Predictably, this has spilled over into other components, too. Storage prices have jumped big-time as the supply chain’s also pivoted toward supplying the NAND flash that powers SSDs to data center buyers. (Their appetite for storage is just as ravenous as for DRAM.) Meanwhile, graphics cards, which depend heavily on VRAM, continue to grow more expensive. Now, the final hardware these chips reside in is seeing prices spike across the board.

(Credit: Tharon Green/PCMag/Newegg/Getty Images)

Apple is less of a bellwether and more of a final bell toll. We’ve seen similar price increases from HP, Framework, and Lenovo. Microsoft has raised Surface prices by up to $500. Phone makers like Samsung have bumped up the Galaxy Z Fold 7 by $80 for the 1TB model, alongside price hikes from Android rivals such as Nothing, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Realme. The gaming industry feels it, too; Valve confirmed the base model of the new Steam Machine is above $1,000, Sony boosted PS5 prices by up to $150 in response to memory chip pressure, Xbox prices are also climbing, and Nintendo Switch 2 prices will soon spike.

More than most, Apple has the negotiating clout to strike supply chain bargains, not to mention the cash reserves to absorb the shock that the memory and storage shortages have caused. Still, the fact that Apple caved on prices across the board signals that this is a massive, systemic problem—bigger than even the largest tech tycoons can weather.

Where We Are Headed? Fears, Hopes, and Volatility

When I first wrote about the RAM crisis, I predicted that the budget laptop category would take a serious hit as a result of these price increases. In March, analysts at TrendForce estimated price increases of up to 40% in certain segments. TrendForce’s latest updates and these new Apple price hikes suggest that laptop makers will continue passing costs through, especially on mainstream and higher-memory configurations, leaving the under-$1,000 laptop class increasingly vulnerable.

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When everything steps up in price, the premium systems become just that much less accessible, and midrange systems inch toward what was once high-end pricing. However, budget laptops can’t increase $100 or $200 without pricing out whole swaths of shoppers. Moving forward, this crunch could mean fewer true bargain models on store shelves.

We might see brands trying to soften the blow on base models by cutting the amount of RAM you get at the low end, or by resorting to storage downgrades—leaving the most expensive models to take the largest outright price increases. Premium categories like ultraportables and AI-heavy machines will see the sharpest markups; they have to placate the memory needs of buyers expecting top-of-the-line performance.

Grab These Macs at Original Prices Before It’s Too Late

I had a brief glimmer of hope during Computex 2026 that a wave of new, capable processors might improve the situation. (Alright, I’ll admit, the headline at the link may have overstated things a bit.) They still might, but we’re seeing that even a laptop like the MacBook Neo, which uses a repurposed A18 Pro chip and benefits from Apple’s sizable negotiating power, is not immune to the on-the-ground memory-supply situation.

So maybe I’ll hold off trying to predict exactly what’s going to happen. Prices will rise, new systems will launch, and fresh innovations will eventually give us a budget-laptop world that just looks different. For buyers right now, the best strategy is to hunt for temporary promotions on existing, in-stock configurations rather than assuming prices will normalize anytime soon.

The only solid prediction I have to make right now is this: volatility, and lots of it. Buying new technology is now a roller coaster, and the ride’s going to last a long time. Bust out the Dramamine.