The new MacBook Pro laptops are up to $400 more expensive than their predecessors, thanks to the RAM shortage

In Brief

Apple unveiled its latest slate of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops connected Tuesday morning, and successful the lawsuit of the MacBook Pro, the caller hardware comes with the announcement of caller M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.

The specs connected the caller chips are impressive, featuring an 18-core CPU that Apple says is implicit 4x the highest GPU compute for AI compared to the erstwhile generation. But consumers whitethorn beryllium amazed to spot the terms of the caller MacBook Pro devices. For the basal MacBook Pro device, which has an M5 Pro chip, prices commencement astatine $2,199 and $2,699 for the 14-inch and 16-inch models, respectively. The MacBook Pro models with the M5 Max chips commencement astatine a whopping $3,599 and $3,899 for the respective 14-inch and 16-inch models.

For comparison, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro spot started astatine $1,999 erstwhile it was released.

With the demands for much computers and information centers to powerfulness AI, the marketplace is experiencing a shortage of RAM, causing representation prices to surge.

Analysts are already predicting that smartphone shipments volition plummet this twelvemonth arsenic a effect of the shortage. Naturally, different hardware similar laptops would beryllium impacted too, and Apple’s pricing could service arsenic a bellwether for however overmuch the assemblage volition beryllium affected.

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