How to buy a laptop when everything’s expensive

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 [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02David Pierce?

  Welcome back to The Vergecast, flagship podcast of 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 Di Benedetto, for another installment of our ongoing series, The RAMageddon Survival Guide. His recommendations are coming up, but first, here's what's happening on The Verge today.

• 0:42David Pierce?

  This is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Thursday, August 27, 2026. Apple has formally announced its 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 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time on September 9. 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,

• 1:26David Pierce?

  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.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Company spending is complex. Managing it should be simple. Amex Corporate connects cards, expenses, and payments to streamline the way you work. Built to simplify, designed to scale. This is Amex Corporate. Get started at go.amex slash Amex Corporate. Terms apply.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Interrupted sleep, headaches, constant fatigue. For a lot of women, these aren't three separate issues. In perimenopause and menopause, they're often the same hormonal story, and you don't have to quietly push through. Midi can help, because your symptoms have answers. Visit joinmidi.com with code VOX right now to book your first visit today. That's joinmidi.com, code VOX to book your first visit. Joinmidi.com, code VOX. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Ramagenon is coming for us all.

• 3:11David Pierce?

  Antonio, welcome back to The Vergecast.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Hey, hey. Good to be here and happy to talk laptops, even though laptops kind of suck right now.

• 3:18David Pierce?

  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 1 to 10, in terms of bleakness, in terms of despair, where are people right now who are in the market for a new laptop?

• 3:38Speaker 03

  I love the despair scale of 1 to 10. I mean, I maybe can suggest that the next time we talk about restructuring our reviews program. Where's the rank on despair?

• 3:46David Pierce?

  Despair meter, despair meter.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  I think our despair meter is, it's probably at like an 8, 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 have risen. Apple raised all their prices. We've seen new laptops come out that get price increases, or 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, it was $100 more like the day it came out than what the Asus was telling us. And it's like, just weird things

• 4:28Speaker 03

  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 going to come out, the price of that exact skew went up $800. And it's like...

• 4:40David Pierce?

  $800?

• 4:42Speaker 03

  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.

• 4:52David Pierce?

  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 16GB of RAM is better than this nice laptop with 8GB 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 16GB of RAM," and now you kind of do. Is that just a Windows thing, or what's up with that?

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Long, short, it kind of is a Windows thing. Like, 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 like pin in the whole, like, the MacBook Neo works with 8GB of RAM, and 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 with 16GB 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. It's one of those, because a lot of Windows laptops, like, they have an MSRP that they sometimes just never sell for.

• 5:59David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  So that laptop might really have some secret MSRP of like $1,000 bucks or something, but that's like maybe only on HP's website, and never actually sells for that price. That thing is constantly just being sold by Walmart and Amazon for like $500-ish. Like, sometimes it actually dipped below $500.

• 6:16David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  And it's, it's nothing amazing. I think I wrote in the review, like, "There's really nothing here to write home about, except that it's 2026, and this comes with 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD, not even 256GB." 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. You know, it's definitely not going to play many games at all. And there's maybe some now, you know, it's pretty rare now, like, because Windows on ARM have gotten 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.

• 7:00David Pierce?

  Right.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  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, that's, they're just kind of already used to that, maybe.

• 7:11David Pierce?

  Yeah, we're not asking for much out here. We're just asking for something that can actually run and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 7:17David Pierce?

  How do you think that HP can get away with selling a computer for this price, when everybody else is like upcharging their laptops by so much, especially with this much RAM?

• 7:27Speaker 03

  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. Like, but I, and 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, like I said, like, 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, $580. I don't know. You 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

• 8:12Speaker 03

  that, for their laptop. And if you see a price change on you, that's, it's the worst feeling. It's awful.

• 8:18David Pierce?

  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?

• 8:44Speaker 03

  Uh, face with marketplace. I mean, like, like you can always, maybe some people can find some sweet deal locally or, you know, someone off, but I, 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.

• 8:57David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  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. It's practically a new laptop. Uh, so, and it comes with a warranty and everything. And Lenovo sells a lot of like, uh, refurb ThinkPads. 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. Um, because those laptops, like, maybe some of them like ThinkPads, like Lenovo

• 9:41Speaker 03

  ThinkPads can easily be like $2,000 plus, brand new. They're built like a tank and they, they can last a very long time. But, you know, depending on where your budget is, you may 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, on modern chips. And it might be okay if you're the type, the person that just like leaves your laptop plugged in all day. Maybe that's, 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, with, um, with refurbs and use sales. Ideally, you want something that's a trusted seller, uh, and has a warranty. And surprisingly, actually, um, Acer has a very good eBay store.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  And it's just where, it's just where they channel their refurbs through. And it's like, not just laptops, you can also get monitors and stuff like that. And it's, it's Acer, a lot of it's budget, budget oriented. Some of it's like, you wouldn't want to touch because it's old or whatever. But like, eh, if you look every so often, you might, you might find something good. And then, like, there's obviously Best Buy. Best Buy sells lots of reverbs.

• 10:42David Pierce?

  Right.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  They sell, um, open box items. I bought a gaming laptop back in the pandemic. It was an open box. And at the time, it was actually a great deal. I just saved me a couple hundred bucks on something that was already discounted. It's like, I maybe saved like $400 to $500 then on something that, you know, would have been a little tougher to swallow, uh, if I bought it new.

• 11:00David Pierce?

  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 buy their 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?

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Uh, I haven't used Backmarket. 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's, it does be a bit buyer beware and anywhere. And, you know, use, use your wits. 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, when, in school and buying camera equipment, and it's like, oh, how does this random site have this for

• 11:46David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  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, this is scam. So if you see something scammy or see something weird, just avoid it. Just don't. And, and just, you have to kind of come to terms with 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, you've, if you determine that you really need that upgrade now, or you, you know, you've got a, a kid in your household going to college, or, uh, stepping up to high school, and they need a laptop, they don't want anyone assigned to them, um, then you gotta pull the trigger. I think, you know, just know that you, it's, there's a good chance it might just get more expensive from here. So, uh, you're probably, maybe you're just getting a deal even at MSRP in some cases. Tell yourself that. Just tell yourself

• 12:30Speaker 03

  and just, you know, we can, we can make ourselves feel better however we try.

• 12:35David Pierce?

  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 used 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 you, it's just not worth it anymore?

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Okay. So I'm gonna say some, some broad strokes. I think for like, uh, let's look at like thin and lights and productivity laptops real quick. Um, basically, anything Apple, if you're getting an M-series chip, you're, you're mostly fine, right? Like, I know plenty of people that are, that still use M1 MacBook Airs. I've see, I see you folks in our comments, uh, on reviews and saying like, my M1 MacBook Air is still going great. And I'm, I'm, that's awesome. Like, it's still a very workable laptop. Uh, and so I think generally, Apple, if you've got M-series, you're probably good for a while. Uh, if you've got an M-series with 8GB RAM, 20GB of storage, and it's like an M1, it's like, okay, well, you, how much runway do you have is the 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's already been

• 13:50Speaker 03

  run up a bit. How long is it gonna last you before you start to feel the pain of, maybe that's limited RAM, or, uh, or that, that, you know, slightly older chip? When it comes to like, Intel, uh, the last gen, like Lunar Lake 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, to do very much. Those are like, if you can find a good Lunar Lake deal, do it. I, I love Intel Lunar Lake laptops for the most part. It's the chip. Um, and it's kind of a similar story with AMD's, uh, Strixpoint.

• 14:23David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  But then also with, uh, like, uh, the Snapdragon laptop, Snapdragon X. Uh, there's a now a 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, a pretty, a very efficient and powerful enough laptop for everyday, you know, productivity stuff.

• 14:46David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 03

  Those are all like the last few years. Once you go back farther, like Intel, um, like Alderlake, 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. Uh, I believe that was 12th gen, off the top of my head. And, uh, that's where like, though, like, battery life is gonna not be the same. Like, we're being, 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, just, you're probably pretty good. Um, and then, when it comes to gaming, I think, um, you could maybe go as far back as like, like,

• 15:28Speaker 03

  let's just, this is, simplify it and talk like Nvidia, like RTX GPUs.

• 15:32David Pierce?

  Yeah, that's, that's a little simpler when we're talking about gaming specifically.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, obviously, there's a 50 series now. Um, you're spending a minimum of $1,000 even to get into like an RTX 5050, right? Baseline. I recently reviewed the HP, well, HyperX, but HP owns them, uh, HyperX Omen 15, um, which is a pretty fine, like, entry-level gaming laptop. But it's just one of those things that, it kind of sucks that they used to like an $800 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 a, just over a thousand. Maybe you get it on around a thousand-ish when it's on sale or something. So, um, 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,

• 16:14Speaker 03

  the latest Nvidia DLSS stuff in like multi-frame gen. Um, 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?

• 16:26David Pierce?

  Which are having a revolution right now, you know?

• 16:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:29David Pierce?

  A lot of people are playing indie games right now.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's like, that plays on like, so much of that stuff can play on a potato. You know, so it's like, don't stress it too much. Um, 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.

• 16:48David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  You know, so, or you just have to learn to compensate with playing in 1080, playing on medium to low settings, uh, not having all the fancy stuff. But if you want a workable framerate.

• 16:58David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  But for gaming, I think even a 30 series may be viable if you get a really good deal. But I would, I would stick 40 series for now. And, you know, ideally, so you have, again, you're a little more, little, it's a tiny bit more future-proof.

• 17:10David Pierce?

  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.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  That's fine. That's like, that's like the GOAT of like desktop, desktop GPUs.

• 17:21David Pierce?

  Even plays on my MacBook very well. So, you know, it's great. It's great.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Interrupted sleep, headaches, constant fatigue. For a lot of women, these aren't three separate issues. In perimenopause and menopause, they're often the same hormonal story. And you don't have to quietly push through. Midi can help. Because your symptoms have answers. Visit joinmidi.com with code VOX right now to book your first visit today. That's joinmidi.com, code VOX to book your first visit. Joinmidi.com, code VOX. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  When it comes to your business, you want cards and tools you can trust. AMEX Corporate helps put you in control. Set custom spend parameters to help fit your business needs and quickly issue unlimited corporate cash back cards. All backed by best-in-class fraud protection and the powerful backing of American Express. Get started at go.amex slash AMEX Corporate. Terms apply.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior like beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bull spend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

• 19:09Speaker 06

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it it wasn't.

• 19:17Speaker 05

  Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 19:33David Pierce?

  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?

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Not entirely, but I just, I think broad strokes, like I wrote up like a back to school laptop buying guide. It's 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, $3,000.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  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 freelancer or whatever.

• 20:36David Pierce?

  You need that power.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. For 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.

• 20:47David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  And ultimately, I want like, I want to find people like, like I said, chips that give you some, some headroom and some, 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 trackpad that works, like you want, you know, speakers that usually are audible and like not just going to mangle any music that you play.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  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 that's at least has some quality of life. So I look at things like the speaker quality, the, the screen quality. I'm hoping for passable in all fronts, but ultimately the easy answer for laptop talk about right now. Go ahead and curse me out, but sorry, it's MacBook Neo. It's just, again, it's just, it's easy to recommend because it's like, when I reviewed it, I called it 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.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  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, the trackpad 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 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 Neo is maybe fine.

• 22:43David Pierce?

  Do you think the Neo is still good with its price increase? Cause now it starts at $699.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  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 at $59, I was actually thoroughly surprised and happy because I liked, I like people being able to buy good laptops for, for fair prices or good price, 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 and I'll just give some quick calls to Asus ZenBook A14 Snapdragon X chip.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  But Asus has some really nice hardware, especially if you like, like thin light designs like in the ZenBooks with OLED screens and a lot in some, 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.

• 23:45David Pierce?

  Wow.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  It's crazy, but that's a much more, that's a much more expensive laptop. The A14, it's like its 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.

• 23:58David Pierce?

  And they still game okay? Or is that kind of limited by that?

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Don't, don't, 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, just go into it 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, play just fine, but they're not going to be like latest and greatest and it's going to be sparse.

• 24:25David Pierce?

  So maybe get it for school so you don't spend all your time gaming instead. Cause you can't.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. They are productivity laptops.

• 24:32David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's, that's what they're good for. And then I think I mentioned like, you know, getting like a refurb, you know, Lenovo ThinkPad. And then the other thing, one in addition to the HP Omni Book is the Acer Aspire 14 AI. Let's just ignore that AI is in so many of these names.

• 24:51David Pierce?

  Part, sure.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  But that's one of those cases where it's a lunar lake, Intel lunar lake chip. You're, 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 trackpad'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.

• 25:27David Pierce?

  Okay, yeah. Under a thousand, that's pretty good for that.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's just one of those things like if you can overcome its, its flaws around that chip, then that's, that's a nice laptop for a very low price.

• 25:38David Pierce?

  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? Cause I think a lot of people are, a lot of people want 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 something insane costs.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I got you. Asus's Toughline is, is usually a pretty strong contender in that space. Their ROG or I say rog, the rog lines, like, like the stuff like the rog Strix, like the Strix 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, 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, they're fine and they're, 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.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  I haven't really used any of those, but, 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, and it's a fine laptop, you know? 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 a higher, like above 1,500, like between 1,500 and $2,000. If you want like a big beefy like desktop replacement laptop for a gaming laptop, MSI has some, I think it was a crosshair 18 inch. I was like, you know how big an 18 inch laptop is?

• 27:15David Pierce?

  That's crazy. Can't even put that in most backpacks.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  It's, yeah, it's a, I've traveled with one once and I like, it took up like half my suitcase.

• 27:24David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  So, no, but I think it's like, that's, that's the kind of 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.

• 27:33David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  But nowadays we'd be realistic that you're getting an RTX 4070 mobile chip, mobile GPU, not, you know, like a 4070 Ti or 5080. All that's well above $2,000 now. So I would think, but 4070 is a pretty good spot if you can get it under 2K.

• 27:48David Pierce?

  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?

• 28:04Speaker 03

  I don't want to be too grim, but I, 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 they 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 going to be in the high end, it's 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, always used to be like the good bang for the buck.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Especially if you were even like a student that like wanted to game, but also like you were going to do some, some slightly heavier work than like a thin light was going to do.

• 28:50David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  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?

• 29:00David Pierce?

  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.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's the most egregious example. I think if there's good competition, then they want to compete. They want to get, even if it's just sales and discounts to get more people buying their laptops. But if the competition starts to wane because there's just not as many options out there, that's tricky, too. Well, we'll have to see.

• 29:31David Pierce?

  This is kind of the first Black Friday I feel like that we're 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?

• 29:44Speaker 03

  You're right. I think it might still be worth waiting. It's just that I think what's going to happen is you're going to see like, and we've seen this a little bit here and there, where the sales are not really like, if you look at those historical lows, like you use like a price track. Yeah, 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 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 femme member to buy the Surface Laptop 13-inch. I loved that laptop. It was like $800 when it came out.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  My femme member bought it for, I think, like $650. It was such a, I'm like, I don't think you have any worries wearing those on arm. Just buy it. Like, I think you're going to love it. And she was coming from a very old MacBook. And she loves it. It's worked out great for her. That price will never happen again. Like now that laptop is $950 instead of $800 with half the RAM that she got at $650. It's just that's, you just have to accept that.

• 30:59David Pierce?

  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.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  There's nothing wrong with hoping. Hoping is free.

• 31:10David Pierce?

  Hope is what we all need right now.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me on, David.

• 31:13David Pierce?

  That's it for The Vergecast. Let us know what you think. Call the hotline 866-VERGE11 or email [email protected]. 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 Kahas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. See you next time.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Interrupted sleep, headaches, constant fatigue. For a lot of women, these aren't three separate issues. In perimenopause and menopause, they're often the same hormonal story. And you don't have to quietly push through. Midi can help because your symptoms have answers. Visit joinmidi.com with code VOX right now to book your first visit today. That's joinmidi.com, code VOX to book your first visit. Joinmidi.com, code VOX. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage.

• 32:12Speaker 07

  Fall savings are happening now at The Home Depot. Save up to $500 on select appliances. Plus, enjoy free delivery when you spend $998 or more. From prepping to cooking to cleaning up, Frigidaire has you covered. The custom Flex Temp drawer switches from fridge to freezer. With more than 15 cooking modes, including stone baked pizza mode, you can enjoy restaurant-quality pizza in as little as two minutes. Then clean up with the Frigidaire dishwasher, featuring the industry's fastest normal wash cycle. Shop fall savings now at The Home Depot. Offer valid through October 21st. US only. See store online for details.