
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist.\u00a0 Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.\u00a0 ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-18/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Luke James Social Links Navigation Contributor Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
Hooda Thunkett "Gartner previously projected AI PCs would reach 50% market penetration before the end of the decade, but rising memory prices on premium-tier hardware will also push that milestone back to 2028." Pretty sure 2028 is actually still before the end of the decade. Reply
JRStern LOL, you can't eliminate entry-level, you just mean entry-level is getting more expensive. And there are no AI PCs, that rocket blew up at launch. The current AI features are minimal and nobody has yet found a use for them. This may eventually change but it needs some value, not just hype. Reply
LordVile Hooda Thunkett said: "Gartner previously projected AI PCs would reach 50% market penetration before the end of the decade, but rising memory prices on premium-tier hardware will also push that milestone back to 2028." Pretty sure 2028 is actually still before the end of the decade. Guessing the “writer” hallucinated a bit Reply
Notton On the one hand, Good. Most of the "entry level" laptops were manufactured e-waste that broke down right outside of the warranty period with nothing you can do to cheaply fix them because the RAM and SSD/eMMC were soldered down. Even if they lived outside of the warranty period, most of them couldn't even serve a second life because the specs were inadequate. On the other hand, Ugh. There were some legitimately interesting low-end laptops coming from smaller brands and this is killing their momentum. For instance, though not exactly a stellar track record, AOC and Acemagic have laptops running on R7-4xxx/5xxx, DDR4-SODIMM (Same thing, different badge?) that none of the major brands bother to carry anymore. Reply
SSGBryan If Garnter predicted the sun came up in the east, I would be outside tomorrow with a compass. Reply
TerryLaze JRStern said: The current AI features are minimal and nobody has yet found a use for them. This may eventually change but it needs some value, not just hype. There are more than enough AI features out there with substantial uses. YOU might not have any use for them (neither do I) but that doesn't mean they don't exist. All of the gaming upscaling is AI, noise suppression and background blurring is AI, edge gaming assist and game pilot are AI. There are more then enough reasons for somebody that is new to PCs to go with AI, we are the dinosaurs that are on their way out. (I'm leaving out professional uses like photo and video editing and other stuff like that) It's not just AI youtube shorts and AI girl/boy friends, and generic crap. Reply
Sippincider Notton said: Most of the "entry level" laptops were manufactured e-waste that broke down right outside of the warranty period Heh, warranty period? Years ago, got dragged into helping a friend's family with a bottom-spec Windows ME box they bought on closeout (a 100% price-based purchase). It literally could do nothing more than boot up and tell them the antivirus was expired. Reply
helper800 TerryLaze said: There are more than enough AI features out there with substantial uses. YOU might not have any use for them (neither do I) but that doesn't mean they don't exist. All of the gaming upscaling is AI, noise suppression and background blurring is AI, edge gaming assist and game pilot are AI. There are more then enough reasons for somebody that is new to PCs to go with AI, we are the dinosaurs that are on their way out. (I'm leaving out professional uses like photo and video editing and other stuff like that) It's not just AI youtube shorts and AI girl/boy friends, and generic crap. Nvidia is the only one with meaningfully useful AI features for their cards, in my opinion. All the other AI would immediately die if they had to be paid for by its consumers. Nvidia is also in the business of selling the idea of sales to other salesmen and pocketing billions doing it. Once the salesmen they are selling these ideas to find out that their products are worthless or extremely over invested in vs the amount of income they generate, the entire industry is going up in flames. Reply
vinay2070 Back in the days when I used to read toms on a dial-up internet, articles used to be better and tech oriented. Now its worse than wccftech. Reply
logainofhades Entry level is not going to disappear. It may get more expensive, or be a generation or two behind the latest/greatest, but it is not going to disappear…. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/rising-memory-prices-pile-more-strain-on-consumer-pc-market#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Enthusiast runs desktop PC off 56 AA batteries — Intel computer lasts less than 5 minutes while playing Minesweeper
- AMD’s K6-III ‘Sharptooth’ debuted this week in 1999 with on-die L2 cache to savage the Intel Pentium II — it also held the line against the Pentium III
- ISSCC 2026: AMD discloses how the Instinct MI355X doubled per-CU throughput despite lower compute unit count — 'We are actually matching the performance of the
- From Radiology to Drug Discovery, Survey Reveals AI Is Delivering Clear Return on Investment in Healthcare
- NVIDIA and Global Industrial Software Leaders Partner With India’s Largest Manufacturers to Drive AI Boom
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.