The hefty price hikes were spotted by our chums over at Windows Central, and if you're a fan of Microsoft's laptops and tablets, it won't make for pleasant viewing. How about a starting price of $1,500 bar a cent for the base 13-inch Surface Pro, with 16 GB of memory and a 512 GB SSD? Err, no thank you.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with my 11-inch Surface, which I use exclusively for work trips. It's very compact and lightweight, making it perfect for stuffing into a carry-on bag when flying. It's also rather slow, a tad prone to overheating, and has a battery life that's underwhelmed, if I'm being generous.

The closest current- generation Surface laptop that I could replace it with, should I feel the urge, is a 12-inch model, powered by an eight-core Snapdragon X processor. It has 16 GB of memory and a 256 GB SSD, which is better than what I have to use at the moment, but Microsoft wants me to hand over $1,150. That's around $250 more than at launch, and that doesn't include the Type Cover, which will set you back another $149.

Sure, that only has 8GB of memory, and it's basic, and it's essentially an i Phone stuck inside a laptop body, but for doing simple work on the go, I know where my money would be going. Now, we all know why this has occurred, since tech news is pretty much all directly related to it: the global supply shortage of Dram and flash memory, caused by the insatiable appetite (and copious wallet) of the AI industry. There are relatively few sectors unaffected by this in the PC market right now, and while it has taken a few months for computer vendors to ramp up their prices, we've only just seen the hikes take hold.

Give it another six to eight months, and it's likely to be even worse. Some vendors may well find themselves priced right out of the market. Even Microsoft, with all its money and gravitas, can't escape the fact that there simply aren't enough memory and storage chips going around, and they're being priced accordingly.

It is perhaps rather ironic that Microsoft itself has played a role in all of this, because it's been at the forefront of the rise in generative AI, and has banging that drum hard for well over a year. It has spending billions of dollars on data centers and AI accelerators, to push Copilot into every nook and crevice of Microsoft's portfolio. Under different circumstances, I could be pushed to smile wryly if all of this resulted in the downfall of the mighty Redmond giant.

But I doubt that will happen. This is a brief blip, and one that consumers will ultimately pay for before things settle down. Elsewhere in the Store, the Surface Laptop 5 starts at $1,499 for the Core i5, 8GB, 256GB version, or you can stump up $2,199 for the top-of-the-range i7, 16GB, 512GB variant.

Ouch. And let's not forget the 'dual-screen experience', whichever way you choose to slice it. The Surface Duo 2 now commands anything between $649 and $1,299, depending on how much cloud power and memory you need.

By contrast, the original Duo still lingers in the store, available for a mere $499. Looking ahead, none of this shows any signs of changing anytime soon. For now, these price increases are largely limited to components like CPUs and GPUs.

Memory, storage, screens, and batteries remain mostly unscathed, meaning laptops and desktches continue to cost roughly what they always have. However, as demand for DRAM continues to soar due to AI and other factors, the situation with memory modules could quickly change. NVIDIA's upcoming RTX 40 series, scheduled to drop later this year, is expected to be significantly more expensive than its predecessor—perhaps by as much as 50 percent.

AMD's next-gen parts, reportedly dubbed 'Zen 2' and 'Roadrunner,' are allegedly running into similar issues. During recent livestreams, officials reportedly hinted at delays and manufacturing challenges, suggesting higher prices could be on the cards when these processors launch. One silver lining: Intel's forthcoming Arcturus LP (aka Jasper) lattice, rumoured for a late-2026 release, may actually be cheaper than previous generations, potentially bucking the overall trend.

Only last year, NVIDIA's RTX 3060 sold for around $300–$350; with the latest rumours suggesting a $450–$500 price tag, it's unlikely we'll see many enthusiast-class GPU models below the $400 mark. High-end configurations featuring stronger GPUs and more cores are expected to carry substantially higher pricing. An RTX 3080 Ti, for example, could