{"id":22973,"date":"2026-05-06T07:37:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/ramageddon-is-the-era-of-cheap-phones-and-laptops-over\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T07:37:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:37:22","slug":"ramageddon-is-the-era-of-cheap-phones-and-laptops-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/ramageddon-is-the-era-of-cheap-phones-and-laptops-over\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018RAMageddon\u2019: is the era of cheap phones and laptops over?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bargains are disappearing and the cost of gadgets such as MacBooks and PS5s is rising as AI competes for memory chips<\/p>\n<p>The end of the cheap laptop, the bargain phone and affordable games consoles may be on the horizon. Not because new models are more hi-tech, but because the cost of computer components has shot up.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, the biggest manufacturers of laptops and phones, including Microsoft, Samsung and Dell, started putting up prices and pulling cheaper models \u2013 which is going to make finding budget phones and laptops under \u00a3400 much harder.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2026\/may\/06\/ramageddon-cheap-phones-laptops-macbooks-ps5s-ai-chips\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/1b55ecee516ee1fb57a3284a68b6c2c1f6b3aa85\/651_0_6512_5209\/master\/6512.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=38f7d4f71613cf9cfc5d15c067b2d3bf\" title=\"\u2018RAMageddon\u2019: is the era of cheap phones and laptops over?\" \/>Bargains are disappearing and the cost of gadgets such as MacBooks and PS5s is rising as AI competes for memory chips<br \/>\nThe end of the cheap laptop, the bargain phone and affordable games consoles may be on the horizon. Not because new models are more hi-tech, but because the cost of computer components has shot up.<br \/>\nRecently, the biggest manufacturers of laptops and phones, including Microsoft, Samsung and Dell, started putting up prices and pulling cheaper models \u2013 which is going to make finding budget phones and laptops under \u00a3400 much harder. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bargains are disappearing and the cost of gadgets such as MacBooks and PS5s is rising as AI competes for memory chips The end of the cheap laptop, the bargain phone and affordable games consoles may be on the horizon. Not because new models are more hi-tech, but because the cost of computer components has shot &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/ramageddon-is-the-era-of-cheap-phones-and-laptops-over\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\u2018RAMageddon\u2019: is the era of cheap phones and laptops over?<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22973"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}