Apple's MacBook Neo is no longer the only budget laptop to face a price increase amid the global memory crisis.
Dell has quietly raised the price of its entry-level XPS 13 laptop by $100. The company has also introduced a new base model with half the storage as before.
At its launch in mid-June, the XPS 13 cost $699.99 with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. As of early September, it costs the same with only 256GB of storage:
Intel Core 5 320, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD — $699.99 (new)
Intel Core 5 320, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD — was $699.99, now $799.99
Intel Core 5 320, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD — was $899.99, now $999.99
This price bump erases one advantage the base XPS 13 had over the base MacBook Neo, which was its higher storage capacity. Now, both budget laptops cost $700 with 256GB of storage and $800 with 512GB of storage. (It's worth noting that Apple and Dell both offer $100 student discounts.)
Doubling the XPS 13's base memory from 8GB to 16GB of RAM still costs $200 extra, but now pushes its sticker price to the $1,000 mark — well out of "budget" territory.
A Dell spokesperson confirmed the price changes to Mashable.
A rise in AI data center construction has caused a global shortage of laptop components like RAM and SSD storage chips, forcing most PC makers to raise their prices. Dell's mid-range 14S and 16S laptops, as well as its premium XPS 14 and 16 models, have also seen price hikes because of this crisis, which is often referred to as "RAMageddon."
For its own part, Apple raised the price of the MacBook Neo by $100 in June because of increasing component costs.
Competition within the budget laptop market has intensified this summer. Acer and Lenovo have also announced their plans to release $699 PCs in the coming months, while Dell is working on some extra lower-end, more colorful variants of the 14S. It hasn't announced pricing for them yet, but previously said it will be "complementary to XPS 13."