The Vergecast - How to buy a laptop when everything’s expensive

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

If, after months of increasingly dire RAMageddon warnings, you just now find yourself in the market for a new laptop... we're here to help. In the latest installment of our "RAMageddon Survival Guide," laptop reviewer Antonio G. Di Benedetto joins David Imel to offer his recommendations. Further reading: Apple announces September iPhone launch event Xbox announces disc-to-digital feature that digitizes your physical games Xbox’s limited-edition green Series X is already sold out Panic is passing Playdate tariff refunds on to customers A RAMageddon guide to back-to-school laptop shopping An okay laptop with 16GB of RAM is better than a nice laptop with 8GB, and this $520 HP OmniBook proves it This is my new favorite laptop, but thanks to RAMageddon the price already went up by $800 Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed. We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to [e-mail] or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to the Vergecast, flagship podcast, trying to buy a computer when it's impossible to buy a computer. I'm David Amel. If you've been listening to the Vergecast for a while, you know that David Pierce has been issuing many, many warnings about how you should buy all of your tech as soon as possible before the RAM shortage makes everything way more expensive. And if you ignored those warnings, I'm sorry. But if you're in the market for a new laptop, we are here to help. So today we're talking to the Verge's laptop reviewer, Antonio D. Benedetto, for another installment of our ongoing series, the Ramaganin Survival Guide. His recommendations are coming up, but first, here's what's happening on the verge today. This is 90 seconds on the Verge for Thursday, August 27th, 2026. Apple has formally announced a September iPhone event where it's expected to unveil the new iPhone 18 Pro series of phones, a new Apple Watch, and most importantly, its first foldable smartphone.

The event will take place at 10 a.m. Pacific time on September 9th. Hopefully, we'll see a new Apple polishing cloth Ultra. Microsoft has announced a new feature that will allow Xbox owners to digitize their existing game collection. Owners will receive a digital entitlement tied to that specific disc, so if they sell the game, they'll no longer have access, similar to real life. Microsoft also started selling a limited edition translucent Xbox Series X for $899, which sold out in minutes. which sold out in minutes, so it seems like they're doing okay. And finally, game developer and PlayDate manufacturer, Panic, has started issuing tariff refunds for customers.

The company charged a tariff while the government was illegally charging to import goods, and after being overturned by the Supreme Court, the government was forced to issue tariff refunds. We've seen refunds ranging from $12.36 to $23, so check your email if you bought anything from the company. Panic is one of the first companies we've seen to actually start giving people their money back after these illegal tariffs, So hopefully we start to see this happen more in the future. You can read more at Theverge.com. That's 90 seconds on The Verge for Thursday, August 27, 2026. Your playlist might get you through the workday,

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Visit ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. Hi, it's Kara Swisher. You know me as co-host of Pivot, but for August, I'm flying solo, and I've lined up some incredible guest host to join me. Mark Cuban, Chelsea Handler, Caitlin Collins,

and a lot more you won't want to miss. Already out, my conversation with Hillary Clinton. Among many other things, we get into redistricting fights, reshaping state politics, and what Trump's golden makeover of the presidency actually means, and it's not good. Trust me, you don't want to skip this one. Find pivot on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. It's coming for us all.

Antonio, welcome back to the Vergecast. Hey, hey, good to be here and happy to talk laptops, even though laptops kind of suck right now. They do, they do. First of all, I am very excited that we get to talk because we have known each other since before both of us were working at this place. So that's kind of cool. On a scale from one, to 10 in terms of bleakness, in terms of despair. Where are people right now who are in the market for a new laptop? I love the despair scale of one to 10. I mean, maybe we can suggest that the next time we talk about restructuring our reviews program.

Where's the rank on despair? Despair meter. Despair meter. Yeah. I think our despair meter is, it's probably at like an eight. And I'm like, I have to give some wiggle room that it can just go higher and just get worse. but things have been rough. Obviously, across laptops, like prices of right have risen. Apple raised all their prices.

You know, we saw, we've seen new laptops come out that get price increases, or does they come in at a higher price than expected, or they get increases shortly after they come out or right as they came out. I think one of them, like an Asus Zen book, A16, like it was $100 more like the day it came out than what the AIS was telling us. And it's like just weird things happening. And then you have like the framework laptop 13 Pro, the review unit hit my door.

And within a week before, like, until the review was gonna come out, the price of that exact skew went up $800. And it's like, what- $800? Yeah. Like what is happening? You know, things that were affordable-ish

are like just not feeling so affordable anymore. And anything like higher end is just getting ludicrous in some cases. Yeah. Yeah. So you've been reviewing a lot of laptops recently. and I just saw an article from you called an okay laptop with 16 gigabytes of RAM

is better than this nice laptop with 8 gigabytes of RAM. Can you explain that a little bit? Because, you know, there have been like many eras of laptops and the MacBooks came out and people said, oh, you don't need 16 gigabytes of RAM and now you kind of do, is that just a Windows thing? Or what's up with that? Okay, long short, it kind of is a Windows thing.

I know some people get angry about that or feel differently. Obviously, everyone has different, use cases, but, you know, like, we'll just put a caveat slash pin in the whole, like, the MacBook Neo works with 8 gigabytes of RAM, and it's, it's passable, and it's a very good laptop with it. It's maybe not going to last as long as, like, something that already comes to 16 gigabytes of RAM and you get more headroom. With that laptop you're speaking of, that's a Windows laptop. That's the HP Omnibook 316. So, I mean, it's like 500-ish dollars. It's one of those,

because a lot of Windows laptops, like they have an MSRP, that they sometimes just never sell for. So that laptop might really have some secret MSRP of like a thousand bucks or something, but that's like maybe only on HP's website and never actually sell for that price. That thing is constantly just being sold by Walmart and Amazon for like 500-ish.

Like sometimes it's actually dipped below 500. And it's nothing amazing. I think I wrote in the review, there's really nothing here to write home about except that it's 2026, and this comes with 16 gigs of RAM and a 512 gig, SSD, not even

256. And it's a base level Snapdragon X chip. So it's Windows on Arm, so there's all the caveats that come with that. It's definitely not going to play many games at all. And there's maybe some now. It's pretty rare now, because Windows on Arvagan

pretty good, but some apps might not be fully compatible or ideal to use with it. But for the most part, it's like it's a fine laptop. Are the speakers good? No. Is the screen really nice? No, it's big, though. It's big and cheap, and people like big, cheap screens. Right.

So it's like, it's kind of fine. As long as you don't mind, like some plastic creakiness, I think the people that are going to spend that price, they're just kind of already used to that maybe. Yeah, we're not asking for much out here. We're just asking for something that it can actually run and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Exactly. How do you think that HP can get away with selling a computer for this price when everybody else is like up charging their laptop space so much, especially with this much RAM? I genuinely don't know. I'm wondering if they've just forgotten that it's at that price still.

It did come out this year. I don't know. But I think I also wrote in that review that it's like maybe this is just a matter of time before the price rises on this too. Or like, you know, it just starts to fluctuate more. And I mean, we already saw like I said, like it, it dipped into the 400s at one point. Maybe that doesn't happen anymore. And maybe then it starts to be, instead of like 520-ish, it's like 550, 550, 5. 80. I don't know. It's like not all of this stuff happens like in an instant. So it can be very

hard to track. And the people who are going to see it the most are the ones who are like day to day checking because they're, you know, they're shopping. Maybe over the course of a few weeks or a month or something like that for their laptop. And if you see a price change on you, that's, it's the, it's the worst feeling. It's awful. Yeah. Generally right now, if I was in the market for a new laptop, Obviously, I'm probably not going to want to buy a new one because it seems untenable to afford new computers right now. What do you think is like the best route because there's used obviously, but the used prices are probably going up because the new prices are up. Is it refurb used, you know, your local Facebook marketplace? What do you think is the best route?

Facebook marketplace? I mean, like, you can always, maybe some people can find some sweet deal locally or, you know, you know, someone off, but it's just, I don't think it's, it's, you're going to do a lot of legwork to maybe save not that much. Yeah. Uh, with stuff like that. I think when it comes to refurbs, you know, usually the safe bet with refurbs is go to a, you know, a trusted retailer. And a lot of times it's actually direct from manufacturers. Apple's, Apple's refurbs are practically new. Like, that's like, you know, you bought the, the CPO Mercedes or something. Um, and it's like, it's practically a new car. Um, it's practically a new laptop. Uh, so, and it comes to a warranty and everything.

And Lenovo sells a lot of, like, refurb think pads. Like, so you can get stuff coming from, like, on the Windows side, like, things that were in, like, business fleets that are from a few years ago and you can save some good money. They're not always going to be, like, dirt cheap, unless you go much older because those laptops, like, maybe some of them are like think pads. Like, Lenovo Think Pads can easily be like $2,000 plus brand new. Yeah. They're built like a tank and they can last a very long time. But, you know, depending on where your budget is, you may have. have to backtrack far enough that you're getting like an older Intel chip, for example,

that like these days is just not the same kind of battery life that we're used to seeing on modern chips. And it might be okay. If you're the type of person that just like leaves your laptop plugged in all day, maybe that's fine too. But there are other places like, you know, like actually some sellers on eBay are, you know, do a lot with refurb and use sales. Ideally, you want something that's a trusted seller and has a warranty.

And surprisingly, actually, Acer has a very good eBay store. And it's just where they channel their refurb is through. And it's like not just laptops. You can also get monitors and stuff like that. And it's ACER. A lot of it's budget oriented. Some of it's like you wouldn't want to touch because it's old or whatever. But like, if you look every so often, you might find something good.

And then like there's obviously Best Buy. Best Buy sells lots of reverbs. They sell open box items. I bought a gaming laptop back in the pandemic. There was an open box. And at the time, it was actually a great deal. I just saved me a couple hundred bucks on something I was already discounted. It's like, I maybe save like $4 to $500 then on something that would have been a little tougher to swallow if I bought it new.

So do you think the best channel for most of these things? Because most of these manufacturers don't directly sell you computers, right? Like a lot of people by the computers on eBay. A lot of people in my day-to-day life have actually hit me up to ask about services like backmarket. That seems to be an industry that's kind of popped up recently. they certify these repairs, these refurbs. Do you trust those sites? Like, what do you think about those?

I haven't used back market. I only know like a little bit about it. And I think it's just one of those things. Like you have to be, it does be a bit by everywhere and anywhere. And, you know, use your widths. The cliche of if it seems too good to be true, it probably is, like still holds true. Like, you know, if I remember years ago, like, you know, when in school and buying camera

equipment, it's like, oh, how does this random site have this? for a couple hundred dollars. It's like a $2,000 lens, and it's like, well, that's because it's fake. You know, that's just, it's a scam. So if you see something scammy or see something weird, just avoid it, just don't. And just you have to kind of come to terms of the fact

that some of these cases, there may not be a very good deal to get, but you can rest assured that most likely if you buy when you need right now, and you, you've, if you're determined that you really need that upgrade now, or you know, you've got a kid in your household going to college or stepping up to high school

and they need a laptop, they don't get anyone assigned to them, then you've got to pull the trigger. I think, you know, just know that there's a good chance. It might just get more expensive from here. So you're probably, maybe you're just getting a deal even at MSRP in some cases. Tell yourself that.

Just tell yourself and just, you know, we can make ourselves feel better however we try. Yeah. I mean, on that note, like a lot of people who might be buying their first gaming laptop or their first, like, workhorse laptop, they probably are wondering if the performance of these computers

has actually gone up significantly in the last few years, right? Because they might be looking into use computers, they might be looking into computers from three or four years ago. Do you think that it's important to buy a new-ish model now or how far back do you think you can go

before the performance starts degrading enough that it's just not worth it anymore? Okay, so I'm going to say some broad strokes. I think for like, let's look at like thin and lights and productivity laptops real quick. Basically, anything Apple, if you're getting an M-Series, chip, you're mostly fine, right? Like, I know plenty of people that are still use M1 MacBook errors.

I see you folks in our comments on reviews and saying, like, my M1 MacBair are still going great. And I'm, that's awesome. Like, it's still a very workable laptop. And so I think generally, Apple, if you got M series, you're probably good for a while. If you got an M series with 8 gigabytes to RAM and two or six storage and it's like an M1, it's like, okay, well, how much runway do you have is a question. I think that's what it kind of comes down to when you buy, you're buying an older one you're it's just like buying a used car right like picture like your 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 maybe that's limited ram or uh or that you know slightly older chip when it comes to like intel uh the last gen

like lunar like chips are actually very good and a very nice balance of efficiency and power um can do a little bit of gaming uh if you're not asking it to do very much those are like if you can find a good lunar like deal, do it. I love Intel Lunar like laptops for the most, it's the chip. And it's kind of a similar story with AMD's, uh, Strix Point. Okay. But then also with a like the Snapdragon laptop, Snapdragon X, uh, there's a now with Snapdragon X2 generation. And the Xs are pretty fine. Like, especially if you want, you know, a lot of battery life in a Windows laptop. They're not the best with graphics, but, you know, ultimately you're getting, uh, pretty, very efficient and powerful enough laptop for everyday, you know, productivity stuff.

Yeah. Those are all like the last few years. Once you go back farther, like Intel, like Alder Lake, that's where things start to kind of, you know, get a little bit fishy. We're like, okay, that's a little good chip. I believe that was 12th gen. I'm on top of my head. And that's where like, though, like battery life is going to not be the same.

Like we're getting spoiled now by like Apple, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, all offering like good to great battery life in a lot of cases, except for like obviously big gaming laptops that are not meant to even run on battery. So yeah, if you're picking any of those, you're probably pretty good. And then when it comes to gaming, I think you could maybe go as far back as like,

like let's just, this is make simplify it and talk like Nvidia, like RTX GPUs. Yeah, that's a little simpler when we're talking about gaming specifically. Yeah, yeah. So like, you know, obviously there's a 50 series now. you're spending a minimum of $1,000

even to get into like an RTX 50-50, right, baseline. I recently reviewed the HP, well, HyperX, but HP owns them. HyperX, Oman 15, which is a pretty fine, like, entry-level game laptop, but it's just one of those things that it kind of sucks, that basically like an 800-R-a laptop that you can get sometimes a little cheaper.

And now it's like, I think it was like $1,200 or something, or like just over 1,000. Maybe you get it around 1,000-ish, when it's on sale or something. So you don't need 50 series. And I was like the 40 series stuff is still very good. You're just missing out on like the latest Nvidia DLSS stuff in like multi-frame gen. That's probably fine.

Ask yourself what games you want to play on it. And I'm like, are you looking to play like indie games? Like are you playing Friends Lobster. Which are having a revolution right now, you know? A lot of people are playing indie games right now. Yeah. And it's like that plays on like so much that stuff can play on a potato. You know, so it's like don't stress it too much.

But if you want to be at the cutting edge of like whatever the latest, you know, game with ray tracing and like if you want to play Crimson Desert at like max settings, I'm sorry, you need like a really beefy machine. Yeah. You know, or you just have to learn to compensate with playing in 1080, playing on medium to low settings, not having all the fancy stuff, but if you want a workable frame, right. Okay. But for gaming, I think even a 30 series may be viable if you get a really good deal, but I would stick 40 series for now. ideally so you have again you're a little more little just a tiny bit more future proof well my desktop PC is still a 1080 TI so I feel like you know if you're just playing dota 2 every day like me then you're probably okay that's fine that's like that's like the goat of like desktop

desktop he views that's a legend on my macbook very well so you know it's great it's great support for the show comes from framer if your team wants a website that looks and feels handcrafted but it's still fast to ship check out framer framer is the pro-AI website builder for creators, teams, and businesses that want a professional site and care enough to get every detail right. Agents and humans work in tandem on Framer. Agents bring speed and scale, while people bring taste, judgment, and control. Their agents work in the same place where the real site is designed, managed, reviewed, and published. On Framer, your team can streamline collaboration on the same canvas, build custom code components, create and manage CMS content,

optimize SEO settings, and chip everything all in one place. You can join brands like Perplexity and Miro who rely on Framer for their website building. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at Framer.com slash Verge for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's Framer.com. slash verge for 30% off. Framer.com slash verge. Rules and restrictions may apply. I want to get into some very specific recommendations

because I feel like people want to know what should they buy right now. But before we do the recommendations, what are your criteria for buying a laptop in each of these categories? Do you have like a general criteria that you try to stick to? Not entirely, but I just,

I think broad strokes, I wrote up like a back to school laptop buying guide as like a kind of like survival guide for you know buying a laptop for school now. And while it's, you know, back to school aimed, really anybody can use it as a rubric. And ultimately, I know that when we talk about laptops that are like $2,000 and up, you know, when we think of like like David, you and I are both photographers and come from photo backgrounds in part at least, you know, when we think of like MacBook pros and or, you know, a beefy Mac Mini or a well-equipped or even entry-level like Mac Studio,

like we think of like $2,000 or $2,000 and it's like, it's a lot of money, but like this is kind of what you end up getting when you're getting really, when you're like a pro or semi-pro or freelance or whatever. You need that power. Yeah. Right.

For those creative apps. But I know for most people like they are not spending nowhere near $2,000. So what I was looking at was ideally sub $1,000. Okay. And ultimately, I want to find people like, like I said, chips that give you some, some headroom and some leeway so that you can use it for some years to come. And without it feeling like, ideally without it feeling like a penalty box. There are some laptops out there that you open the lid and you are instantly being punished for using it. You want a nice bright screen. It's barely, it's visible in indoors in like a blanket fort. Okay. Like that's that's, you know, don't even think of bringing this thing outside. You want like a track pad that works. Like you want, like you want. You want. speakers that usually are audible and like not just going to mingle any music that you play.

Like these are the kinds of things I think about because I think while a lot of people will settle for that, you know, a garbage laptop they bought for like $200 whether used or somehow new, I think you should try to get something. At least it has some quality of life. So I look at things like the speaker quality, the screen quality. I'm hoping for passable in all fronts. But ultimately, the easy answer for laptop top top of I right now, go ahead and curse me out, but sorry, it's Macwick Neo. It's just, again, it's easy to recommend because it's like when I reviewed it, I called the Mac for the masses.

And it's just, it's the kind of thing you can easily give to a student, especially like a middle school into like high school student. And just not worry. It works really well. And it's got great battery life. It's got a great balance. And it has all those things that are really nice, like the speaker quality, the screen. quality, the track pad that you can click anywhere corner to corner. The webcam is great. You know, it's like it's got, it's a full package. And a lot of other, a lot of Windows laptops in a similar

price range, you're making compromises somewhere. The MacBook Air is kind of the ideal because, again, as I mentioned, you can use it for like a very long time. It's, it should give you lots of headroom and lots of years of use. But if you can't stretch over $1,000, then yeah, the, the, the, Neo is maybe fine. Do you think the Neo is still good with its price increase? Because now it starts at $699. I do. I think honestly, like, when they announced it, I was, and all the rumors are flying, I was expecting that to be the original price they announced that.

And when they came in a $5.09, I was actually thoroughly surprised and happy. I liked people being able to buy good laptops for fair prices or great prices. I still think it's as good as it is. It's like, yes, it's not the deal it was. But considering everything else, it's still great. And yeah, other other options though, like on the Windows side, things like I put in the buying guide, I'll just give some quick call us to Asus Zenbook A14,

Snapdragon X chip. But AIS has some really nice hardware, especially if you like thin light designs, like in Zenbooks, with OLED screens in some or a lot of cases depending on the model. I really love the A16, the bigger one. It's like those things are like super light. Like the A16 weighs as much as a MacBook Neo, and it's a 16-inch laptop.

It's crazy, but that's a much more expensive laptop. The 814, it's like it's a little sibling. And I think you can get that now on sale for like under a thousand bucks, like 700-ish or so. That's very fair. Can they still game okay? Or is that kind of limited by that? Don't buy them for gaming. Don't buy a Snapdragon laptop to play games.

Like, I think you can play Fortnite now. I think that's the latest. Like, there's a whole thing with like game compatibility with arm-based laptops. I want it to get better. But don't just go into a knowing. that, like, I treat it as like, this is a Mac, basically, like, in terms of, like, game compatibility. There's going to be a few things that play just fine, but they're not going to be anything, like, latest and greatest, and it's going to be sparse.

So maybe get it for school so you don't spend all your time gaming instead. Because you can't. Yeah, exactly. They are productivity laptops. Yeah. And that's what they're good for. And then I think I mentioned, like, you know, getting like a refurb, you know, a little bit of a think pad. And then the other thing, one, in addition to the HP Omni book, is the, you know,

Acer Aspire 14 AI. Let's just ignore that AI is in so many of these names. But that's one of those cases where it's a Lunar Lake, Intel Lunar Lake chip. You're buying that for the chip. It's pretty affordable when it's on sale. I think they can dip to like 600-ish or even lower. And then you're getting an okay to not so great laptop around it. Like the keyboard's fine.

The track pad's fine. The screen is almost garbage. the speakers are also almost garbage like just if you can tolerate it though you're getting a great processor in there plus like tons of ports like I think it has Thunderbolt 4 as well so you're getting speedy ports thanks to Intel

okay yeah under that's pretty good for that yeah it's just one of those things like if you can overcome its uh its flaws around that chip and that's a nice laptop for a very low price if we can just throw away the under a thousand thing I still want to like stay as affordable as possible but I want to know the best gaming laptop to buy right now.

Do you have just like a recommendation for that? Because I think a lot of people are, a lot of people want to something that can do it all. You know what I mean? And they're willing to spend the money, but they just don't want to spend the current amount of money that's something insane costs. Yeah, no, I got you.

AISIS's tough line is usually a pretty strong contender in that space. They're ROG or I say ROG. The ROG lines, like the stuff like the ROG-Strix, like the Strick's G models, they have like a bunch of different tiers and they get very expensive. But like those are those are fine laptops. Again, in those cases you're buying the, you're paying a lot for the GPU and they're going to have some shortcomings of like build quality and stuff like that.

But they're fine and they're big and heavy. Lenovo's Legion series has some really nice options. They also have like a lower end lock. Lenovo lock. That's like they're more budget friendly. I haven't really used any of those, but Lenovo's Legion line, like if you look at like a base like Legion 5i or something is somewhere in that $1,000-ish range, and it's a fine laptop, you know.

Yeah. But just with any of those, like, gaming laptops, like, you just keep in mind, like, don't expect them to get really great battery life, you know. And if you can go up to, like, the higher, like, above $1,500, like, $1,500,000, if you want, like, a big, beefy, like, desktop replacement laptop for a gaming laptop, the MSI has some, I think it was a crosshair, 18-inch, And I was like, you know how big an 18-inch laptop is? That's crazy.

I can't even put that in those backpacks. It's, yeah, it's, uh, I, I've traveled with one once and I, like, it took up like half my suitcase. Yeah. So, uh, no, but I think it's like, that's, that's the kind of the realm where, like, you're going to leave it on a desk, you're going to plug it in and never take it out. The battery life doesn't, it doesn't matter that dies in two to three hours. Yeah.

But nowadays, we'd be realistic that you're getting an RTX, 370 mobile chip, uh, mobile GPU, not, you know, like a 5070 TI or 5080, all that's, yeah. Well, about $2,000 now. So I would think, but $7 is a pretty good spot if you can get it under 2K. Before we sign off here, do you think that, I know you can't read the future, but do you think that there's any chance that these prices ever come down, or is this just our new, I don't want to say new normal because everyone overuses that, but like, is this the future? Is this what we're just going to have to get used to from here on out?

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. What really sucks is how, you know, some of these things will just become more specialized. And as it become more specialized, we're going to see, I think we're already maybe starting to see

some of like the middle falling out where it's like you're going to have like laptops at the low end and then you're going to, it's, I mean, the high end is going to be there, but like the middle might suffer. And a lot of that middle might be like

a lot of those Windows laptops that are in that, like, the gaming laptops of the world that are like mid-range, like that are like, you always used to be like the good bang for the buck, especially if you were even like a student that like wanted a game, but also like you were going to do some slightly heavier work than like a thin light was going to do. Yeah. I think it's going to, it may continue getting rougher before it definitely gets any better. And it's easy to be cynical and think like, well, once the prices get better, are the companies going to lower the prices?

You're right. Right. We've seen many time over that a lot of these companies are getting their refunds from all the tariffs and they are not giving it back to consumers or lowering their prices. So. Yeah, I think that's the most egregious example. I think if there's if there's good competition, then, you know, they want to compete. They want to get, even if it's just sales and discounts that, you know, to get more people buying their, uh, their laptops. But if the competition starts to wane because there's just not as many options out there, that's, that's tricky to. Well, we'll have to see. This is kind of the first like Black Friday, I feel like they were going to have where the prices have changed so much. Do you

think that it's worth waiting for that still, or is that just not a thing anymore? You're right. I think it might still be worth waiting. It's just I think what's going to happen is it's going to, you're going to see like, and we've seen this a little bit here and there where like the sales are not really like, if you look at those historical lows, like you use like a camel camel, camel. Camel or keepa and things like that. And you see like the historical low was X amount and it was like, oh, that was like three years ago. It's never reaching that price again. And it's like now it's like maybe the sale price will dip down to, you know, what it kind of, what the old MSRP was going or just slightly below that. Case in point, like, I think it was actually last year.

I advised a family member to buy the Surface laptop 13 inch. I love that laptop. It was like $800 when it came out. My family member bought it for, I think, like, $6.50. Okay. It was such a, I'm like, I don't think you have any worries with windows on arm. just buy it. Like, I think you're going to love it.

And she was coming from like a very old, like, a MacBook. And she loves it. It's worked out great for her. That price will never happen again. Like that, that price, like now that laptop is 950 instead of 800 and with half the RAM that she got at 650. It's just, that's, we have to, you just have to accept that. Well, Antonio, thanks for coming on the show.

Hopefully, in the coming year or so, maybe the RAM shortage will not be as bad as it is now. we can hope. There's nothing wrong with hoping. Hoping, hoping is free. Hope is what we all need right now. Thanks for having me on you. That's it for the Vergecast. Let us know what you think. Call the hotline 866, Verge 1-1, or email Vergecast at theverge.com. To support everything we do here and get ad-free podcasts, subscribe to the Verge. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The Vergecast is produced by Josh Kajas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. See you next time.

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