Contract DRAM prices have climbed roughly 170 percent since the shortage began, and TrendForce expects a further 13 to 18 percent rise quarter on quarter through the third quarter of 2026, with NAND flash adding another 10 to 15 percent. The global PC market is forecast to contract more than 11 percent across the year as a result.
The part we all really need to understand is why the rate of increase has started to ease. And It’s not just because supply has recovered. Analysts at Azterion have pointed out that the slowdown reflects manufacturers reaching the limit of what buyers will tolerate on a price tag, and when the brake comes from demand rather than supply, the thing that adjusts is the specification instead of the price.
Avril Wu, senior research vice president at TrendForce, described the same pattern to Consumer Reports, noting that a laptop at a given price may look identical to last year’s model while carrying a dimmer screen and half the RAM. That is where the African laptop market sits right now, and it also changes what we really need to be checking before buying henceforth.
The difference between a laptop and a phone that nobody has brought to your notice recently
When a phone ships with 4GB of RAM, that is what it has for the rest of its life. Laptops are not necessarily the same, and this is the single most valuable thing to know in the current market.
Many laptops still use SO-DIMM memory modules, which slot into the motherboard and can be swapped or added to later. Others have memory soldered directly to the board, which fixes it permanently at whatever the factory installed. Two machines sitting side by side at the same price with the same 8GB on the label can therefore be completely different purchases. One can become a 16GB machine in two years for the cost of a module. The other is finished at 8GB forever.
Given that memory is the component whose price is climbing hardest, buying a machine you can upgrade later is the closest thing to protection available to you right now.
How to tell which kind you are looking at
The memory type on the spec sheet gives it away before anything else. Anything listed as LPDDR4, LPDDR4X or LPDDR5 is soldered and cannot be changed. The low power variants are designed to sit directly on the board, which is why thin machines and Chromebooks use them. Memory listed as DDR4 or DDR5 without the LP prefix is usually in slots, though not always, so it is worth confirming.
To confirm it properly, look up the exact model number and search for its service manual or a teardown. Manufacturers publish service manuals for most business ranges, and these state plainly how many memory slots exist and how many are occupied. A machine with 8GB in one slot and a second slot empty is a much better buy than a machine with 8GB soldered, even at a slightly higher price.
Storage follows the same logic. An M.2 NVMe drive can be replaced or, on some machines, joined by a second one. Storage listed as eMMC is soldered and permanent, and eMMC is also considerably slower than NVMe, which affects how the machine feels in daily use far more than the processor does at this end of the market.
On a machine you already own, Task Manager > Performance > Memory on Windows shows how many slots are in use out of how many exist, which answers the question in a few seconds.
What to prioritise when the budget will not stretch
The instinct is to spend on the processor, because that is the number everyone quotes. In the current market that is the wrong order.
A modest processor paired with 16GB of RAM will handle everyday work comfortably for years. A strong processor paired with 8GB soldered will feel slow within eighteen months as browsers and applications grow, and there will be nothing you can do about it. If the choice is between a faster chip and more memory, take the memory, and if the choice is between more memory now and a machine with an empty slot, the empty slot is often the better value since you can fill it when your budget allows.
Storage deserves the same thinking. 256GB fills faster than most people expect once Windows updates accumulate, and adding capacity later is straightforward on a machine with a replaceable M.2 drive and impossible on one with soldered eMMC.
One caution on the upgrade path. Manufacturers are directing production toward DDR5 and enterprise products while reducing allocation to DDR4, so DDR4 modules are likely to become harder to find and relatively more expensive over time rather than cheaper. If you are buying a DDR4 machine with the intention of upgrading it later, buying the module sooner is the safer plan.
Where the imported market changes the calculation
Imported business laptops occupy a large share of the market across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa, and the memory shortage has made them more attractive rather than less. Ex-corporate machines from ranges like the ThinkPad, Latitude and EliteBook lines were built to be serviced, which usually means accessible memory slots, replaceable drives and published service manuals. A three or four year old business machine with two memory slots frequently offers a better upgrade path than a new consumer laptop at the same price with everything soldered down.
The checks that matter on a used machine are different from a phone. Ask for the battery cycle count and health, which Windows can report through a battery report generated from the command line. Confirm the exact model number and look up whether the manufacturer still issues driver and firmware updates for it. Check that the machine is not locked to a corporate management system, since some ex-fleet devices carry BIOS passwords or enrolment locks that cannot be removed. Run the machine for several minutes and listen to the fan, because a laptop that ramps up while idle is usually telling you the thermal paste or the cooling has been neglected.
Whether to buy now or hold off
Unfortunately, Holding off may not help the situation. The moderation in price increases through the third quarter reflects buyer resistance rather than any improvement in supply, and current forecasts do not point toward a return to previous pricing. What waiting does reliably produce is a market where the specification at each price point continues to drift downward, so the machine you can afford in six months may carry less memory than the one you can afford today.
The stronger position is to buy a machine with room to grow rather than to time the market. A laptop with an accessible memory slot and a replaceable drive gives you a purchase you can improve as your budget allows, which is worth considerably more in this cycle than a slightly better processor on a board where nothing can ever be changed.
Join the conversation