Katarzyna Petru
The RAM market is in increasingly worse condition. For many weeks, the tech industry has been flooded with a wave of concerning reports about a dramatic deterioration in the situation in the RAM market. In just the last two months, prices of modules have risen several times, and everything indicates that 2026 will bring no relief. On the contrary – manufacturers are already preparing for long-term problems with the availability of DRAM chips and further increases in their purchase costs.
Less RAM in New Devices
The effects of the crisis will be directly felt by consumers. More and more signals indicate that next year, laptops and smartphones will debut with significantly less RAM than their counterparts from 2024 and 2025. A notebook with 8 GB of RAM and a smartphone equipped with only 4 GB of memory may once again become the market standard, especially in the lower and mid-price segments.
TrendForce's Forecasts for 2026 and the Mid-Range Segment
The company TrendForce has published preliminary forecasts regarding changes in RAM configurations in laptops and smartphones for the year 2026. The report indicates that the only segments that will remain relatively resistant to cuts will be high-end devices. In the case of notebooks, we are still talking about configurations of 16–64 GB, although models with 16 GB of RAM will clearly dominate. Variants with 32 and 64 GB will become niche and noticeably more expensive. In flagship smartphones, the standard is expected to remain in the range of 12–16 GB of memory.
The situation looks much worse in the mid-range segment. TrendForce predicts that by 2026 most mid-range notebooks will be sold by default with 8 GB of RAM instead of 16 GB. Configurations with more memory will not disappear entirely, but they will be rarer and significantly more expensive. A similar trend applies to mid-range smartphones, where the current 6–12 GB of RAM is expected to be limited to 6–8 GB.
Changes in RAM Configurations – TrendForce Table (2026)
Category | Market Segment | New RAM Configurations | Previous RAM Configurations | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Smartphones | High-end | 12-16 GB | 12-16 GB | Transition to 16 GB clearly slows down |
Smartphones | Mid-range | 6-8 GB | 6-12 GB | 12 GB is gradually disappearing from the mid-range |
Smartphones | Entry-level | 4 GB | 4-8 GB | Cost pressures and supply limits |
Laptops | High-end | 16-64 GB | 16-64 GB | Mass configurations focused on 16 GB |
Laptops | Mid-range | 8-16 GB | 8-16 GB | More and more models start with 8 GB |
Laptops | Entry-level | 8 GB | 8 GB | No further reductions possible |
Entry-level returns to 4 GB in smartphones
The biggest cuts will, however, affect the entry-level segment, especially in the world of smartphones. While in laptops, 8 GB RAM will remain the minimum level – mainly due to the requirements of Windows 11 and contemporary applications – in the cheapest smartphones, TrendForce expects a return to configurations with 4 GB of RAM. 8 GB variants are expected to gradually disappear, replaced by cheaper and more stripped-down versions.
2026 as the year of hardware regression?
Considering the scale of problems with the availability of DRAM memory and the rate of price increases, there is a very high probability that these forecasts will actually materialize. The year 2026 could turn out to be a moment of clear regression in the market in terms of hardware standards – at least outside of the most expensive, flagship devices.
