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Laptop prices have been permanently reset, and buyers who wait for a return to 2024 pricing will be waiting forever. In a detailed Vergecast breakdown, The Verge’s laptop reviewer Antonio G. Di Benedetto argued that a perfect storm of RAM shortages, AI-driven component costs, and tariff refunds that never reach consumers has broken the traditional laptop market. The evidence is stark: Framework raised a machine’s price by $800 in a single week, a HyperX gaming laptop that used to cost $800 now sits at $1,200, and Apple has raised prices across its entire lineup. Di Benedetto’s guidance is pragmatic: 16GB of RAM is the new entry point, refurbished channels like Apple, Lenovo, and Acer’s official eBay store offer the only meaningful discounts, and mid-range laptops are actively disappearing from the market. The structural takeaway for investors and consumers alike is that the laptop industry is bifurcating into cheap and expensive extremes, with the middle hollowing out and no relief in sight for Black Friday.
Key Elements
A Market at “Eight Out of Ten” on the Despair Scale
The laptop aisle in 2026 feels less like a consumer electronics section and more like a used car lot after a supply shock. Antonio G. Di Benedetto, who reviews laptops for The Verge, put the current buyer sentiment at “probably like an eight” on a ten-point despair scale, with room to get worse. Speaking on The Vergecast with host David Imel, he described a market where price increases don’t arrive with press releases — they arrive without warning, sometimes before a review can even be written.
Consider the evidence from his own desk. A review unit of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro landed at his door, and within seven days, before his review could publish, the price of that exact configuration rose by $800. Asus launched its ZenBook A16 at $100 more than the company had told reviewers, with the increase applied on launch day itself. The HP Omnibook 316, a budget Windows machine, has been fluctuating between roughly $400 and $500, leaving Di Benedetto to wonder aloud whether the manufacturer has simply “forgotten” it’s still priced that low.
This is not a single tariff shock. It is a rolling series of increases applied at unpredictable moments — at launch, shortly after launch, or silently on existing SKUs. The old playbook of waiting for a sale to hit a historical low is, by his account, broken.
Why 16GB Is Now the Floor, Not a Feature
Di Benedetto’s most recent review headline reads like a consumer warning: “An okay laptop with 16 GB of RAM is better than this nice laptop with 8 GB of RAM.” The distinction is primarily a Windows problem, not a universal one, and it reflects a fundamental shift in what buyers should consider a viable purchase.
His case study is the HP Omnibook 316. At roughly $500, it ships with a base Snapdragon X chip, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD — not the 256GB that was previously standard at that price point. The chassis is plastic. The speakers are mediocre. The screen is nothing special. But the RAM and storage headroom make it a better long-term investment than a more polished machine with 8GB that will hit a wall in two years.
The MacBook Neo, Apple’s budget offering that now starts at $699 after a price increase from its original $599 launch, can technically function with 8GB thanks to the efficiency of Apple silicon. Di Benedetto frames that as “passable” rather than future-proof. The runway is simply shorter.
| Laptop | Price (approx.) | Chip | RAM | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HP Omnibook 316 | $500 | Snapdragon X (base) | 16GB | “Nothing to write home about” but the right specs at the right price |
| MacBook Neo | $699 | Apple silicon | 8GB | “The Mac for the masses” — full package, but limited headroom |
| Acer Aspire 14 AI | $600–700 (on sale) | Intel Lunar Lake | 16GB | Great chip, “almost garbage” screen and speakers |
| Asus ZenBook A14 | ~$700–1,000 (on sale) | Snapdragon X | 16GB | Thin, light, OLED screen; not for gaming |
The Acer Aspire 14 AI is the “buy the chip, tolerate the chassis” option. Lunar Lake is one of Di Benedetto’s favorite recent Intel platforms, offering strong efficiency and Thunderbolt 4 ports. But the surrounding hardware is a compromise. The Asus ZenBook A14 offers a better experience — its A16 sibling weighs as much as a MacBook Neo despite being a 16-inch machine — but at a higher price.
The Used Market: Where the Deals Actually Are
Di Benedetto’s guidance on used hardware is pragmatic and channel-specific. Facebook Marketplace is possible but labor-intensive, with thin margins of savings and all the usual risks. The reliable routes are more institutional.
Manufacturer refurbs top his list. Apple’s refurbished store is “practically new” — the certified pre-owned Mercedes equivalent, with warranty coverage. Lenovo sells refurbished ThinkPads that came from business fleets; these are built to last, but buyers may need to go back several generations to hit budget targets, which means older Intel chips with significantly worse battery life than modern silicon.
On eBay, the key is finding sellers with established reputations and warranty terms. Di Benedetto specifically calls out Acer’s official eBay store as a surprisingly good channel for refurbished laptops and monitors, with a budget-oriented inventory. Best Buy open-box is another route — his personal experience, buying a gaming laptop as an open-box item during the pandemic, saved him $400 to $500 on an already-discounted machine.
For Back Market, which he has not used himself, his advice is caution: “Buyer beware everywhere and anywhere,” with the “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is” heuristic applying at full force.
The overarching message is sobering. Refurbished and used purchases are not a path to spectacular deals right now, because used prices rise when new prices rise. The realistic goal is modest savings from a trustedolder machine is “just like buying a used car — the odometer has already been run up a bit. How long is it going to last you before you start to feel the pain of limited RAM or a slightly older chip?”
How Far Back Can You Go?
For buyers considering older machines, Di Benedetto offers a generational guide with different answers for productivity laptops versus gaming rigs.
For productivity and thin-and-lights, Apple M-series chips from any generation are still viable. He notes that M1 MacBook Airs remain in active daily use by commenters on The Verge’s reviews. The caveat is configuration — an M1 with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage has limited runway.
Intel’s Lunar Lake generation from 2024–2025 earns a “do it” recommendation if found at a good price, with excellent efficiency and light gaming capability. AMD’s roughly contemporary Strix Point is similarly strong. The first-generation Snapdragon X is fine for productivity and battery life, though not for gaming. Intel’s Alder Lake from 2022 is where things “start to get a little bit fishy” — battery life degrades noticeably compared to modern chips.
For gaming laptops, RTX 40-series machines are still very good, with the only sacrifice being the latest DLSS multi-frame generation features. RTX 30-series is viable only at exceptional prices. RTX 50-series is the current generation, but entry-level RTX 5050 machines start at a minimum of $1,000.
Di Benedetto’s broader point is about realistic expectations. For indie games — which he notes are having “a revolution right now” — even modest hardware suffices. But for cutting-edge titles like Crimson Desert at max settings, only a top-tier machine will do. “If you want to be at the cutting edge of whatever the latest game with ray tracing is,” he said, “I’m sorry, you need a really beefy machine.” Buyers should be prepared to compromise on resolution and settings instead of chasing hardware that costs more than a used car.
The $1,000–2,000 Gaming Sweet Spot
For buyers willing to spend but not to the stratosphere, Di Benedetto identifies a practical range. The Asus TUF line is a strong contender in the budget-to-mid gaming space, with the ROG Strix G models above it, though buyers should expect compromises in build quality and significant size and weight. A base Lenovo Legion 5i configuration lands around $1,000 and is, in his words, “a fine laptop.”
The MSI Crosshair 18 sits in the $1,500–2,000 range as an 18-inch desktop replacement. Di Benedetto notes he traveled with one once and it took up half his suitcase — this is a machine that lives on a desk, plugged in, where the 2–3 hour battery life is irrelevant.
The HyperX Omen 15, which he recently reviewed, tells the story of the entire market in one product. It used to be an $800 machine. Now it sits around $1,000 to $1,200. The realistic mid-range target is an RTX 5070 mobile GPU under $2,000. Anything above that — a 5070 Ti or 5080 — pushes well past the $2,000 mark.
The Middle Is Falling Out
Di Benedetto’s most significant prediction concerns market structure rather than individual products. He expects the laptop market to bifurcate. Low-end machines and high-end machines will persist, but the middle — the $800–1,200 Windows laptops that used to serve students who wanted to game and work — is the segment most at risk.
This hollowing-out is compounded by a policy problem that has largely escaped consumer attention. Companies have received tariff refunds from the government after tariffs were overturned by the Supreme Court. Di Benedetto notes that laptop manufacturers are not passing those refunds to consumers or lowering prices. The Panic refunds mentioned in the news — ranging from $12.36 to $23 for Playdate customers — are an exception, not the rule. The money is flowing back to the companies, not the buyers.
Black Friday and the New Normal
Di Benedetto’s advice on timing is cautiously pessimistic. Black Friday 2026 will be the first major sales event under the new pricing regime, and his expectation is that “sales” will mean prices dipping to roughly the old MSRP — not below it.
He uses the Surface Laptop 13 as a case study. It launched at $800. A Verge member bought one for $650. The same machine now costs $950 with half the RAM. David Imel summarized the reality bluntly: “That price will never happen again. You just have to accept that.”
The question of whether prices will ever come down receives a direct answer from Di Benedetto: “I don’t want to be too grim, but I fear that this is like this is the future. And I’m just kind of hoping it’s mitigated, that it doesn’t just continue getting worse.”
His closing advice to buyers is simple. If you need a laptop now — for a child starting college or high school, for work — pull the trigger. The price you see today is likely the best price you will see for that machine. “Tell yourself that,” he said. “We can make ourselves feel better however we try.”
The structural reality is this: the laptop market has undergone a permanent repricing. The old playbook — wait for sales, buy last year’s model, expect discounts at MSRP — is dead. The new playbook is to identify the minimum viable configuration (16GB RAM, 512GB storage), accept that the chassis around it may be mediocre, and buy when you need it rather than when the price looks right. The MacBook Neo at $699 remains the default recommendation for most buyers. The HP Omnibook 316 at roughly $500 is the value pick for Windows users who can tolerate compromises. Refurbished channels from Apple, Lenovo, and Acer offer the only meaningful discounts left. And the unresolved tension is structural: if the middle of the market collapses and competition wanes, even today’s prices may look good in retrospect.
Full content available at:Our RAMageddon laptop buyers’ guide | The Vergecast
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