You can blame AI for lots of things, from the environmental impact of enormous AI data centers consuming massive amounts of land, water and power to AI slop that is somehow making advertising and social media even worse. And, now, as you watch your electricity bill rise while sitting through terrible McDonald's and Coca-Cola holiday commercials, you can blame AI for the rising cost of computers.
The AI boom has led to a shortage of PC memory as AI companies gobble up RAM and storage to help power the thousands of servers in their growing number of data centers. This increased demand has resulted in a sharp spike in the price of RAM -- the same RAM found in laptops and desktops. And computer manufacturers seem ready to pass this cost onto consumers.
According to reports, Dell will raise prices for its computers by 15% to 20% or more as soon as mid-December, and Lenovo has said its prices will increase at the start of the new year. You can expect the other PC vendors to follow suit.
If you want to get ahead of the rising costs that are expected to hit sooner rather than later, I've got a couple of suggestions:
1. If you're shopping for a computer, don't delay.
If you've got the money earmarked for it and can buy it before the end of the year, I'd make that purchase now before the price goes up. By the time next year's models are announced at CES in a few weeks, it might be too late. And there are plenty of great laptops available right now (more on that shortly).
2. Buy as much preinstalled RAM as you can afford.
Most laptops have soldered RAM that you can't upgrade post-purchase, so this is a good general rule of thumb at any point when buying a laptop. But it's even better advice (if I do say so myself) at this specific point in time, with prices set to take off. If you can pack 32GB or even 64GB of RAM into that laptop you're eyeing, I say go for it.
For gaming laptops that have user-replaceable RAM that isn't soldered to the motherboard, it might be a good idea to fill up those DIMM slots now when you're configuring a model for purchase. Because if you plan to buy a gaming laptop with a minimum of RAM now, leaving a DIMM slot or two free to add more RAM later, you will likely find yourself paying more for it than you would now.
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Five laptop recommendations
To help you find a laptop before laptop prices go up, here are five laptops I recommend without hesitation. Each won an Editors' Choice award this year, and each serves up 32GB of RAM or gives you the option to increase the base 16GB allotment to 32GB or 64GB.
The HP OmniBook 5 14 and Asus Zenbook A14 are thin-and-light mainstream laptops with stylish, all-metal designs and beautiful OLED displays. And each offers a Qualcomm Snapdragon X series processor and exceptional battery life. The ZenBook A14 I reviewed came with 32GB of RAM, and the OmniBook 5 14 had only 16GB of RAM. But HP lets you configure the OmniBook 5 14 with 32GB of RAM while still keeping the cost at less than $1,000.
For gamers, the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10 provides a high-resolution OLED that widens its appeal beyond just gaming. And its pricing has remained a consistent $1,569 at Newegg. There's no telling how long the price will stay at that level, but that's a great price for a well-rounded, midrange gaming laptop with RTX 5060 graphics.
Lenovo also made the best two-in-one CNET reviewed this year in the near-perfect Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition.
Rounding out my recommendations is my favorite MacBook, the 15-inch Air, which offers an optimal balance of screen size and system weight, along with Apple's powerful and efficient M4 processor. I reviewed it with 16GB of RAM, but you can expand it to 24GB or 32GB before you buy.
For more, check out the best laptops of 2025, best Windows laptops, best MacBooks, and best budget gaming laptops, best two-in-ones and best battery life laptops.
