The global pandemic and chip shortage has seen a pretty harsh rise in price when it comes to gaming PC tech. So far, this has mostly affected the price of desktop parts. Graphics cards have been hit especially hard with prices soaring over twice recommended retail in Europe. This has meant that in the current market, sometimes a good gaming laptop is actually a much better deal than a PC. But it looks like this is set to change.
Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan posted on Twitter about the rising costs of PC components. He speculates that next gen gaming laptops are going to see an increase in price, and specifically mentions Razer’s Blade line of gaming laptops as likely to experience inflation.
Just had a long meeting to review our gaming laptops line for next year – looks like there are significant increases in component costs etc and we’ll be seeing price increases for next gen gaming laptops across the board (including the @Razer Blade) next year.November 30, 2021
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Razer Blade laptops, while pretty baller for gaming, aren’t often the best value. Their nice slim builds and capable insides often put them in the more expensive realm, not to mention that gamer chic branding. We often enjoy them in our reviews, but don’t necessarily recommend them for the budget minded. Usually if you’re going after one of these laptops, you’ve already decided to pay a premium but that might just be getting bigger.
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Hopefully we’ll see solutions to the chip shortage sooner than expected, and these massive price hikes won’t be too much of a problem. Nvidia’s CEO also doesn’t see the chip shortage ending anytime soon, while AMD’s has been more hopeful. It’s still good to see a CEO talking straight about the reality of prices on the rise when it comes to their own products. It could also be a good warning to pick up a gaming laptop sooner rather than waiting for the next gen to drop.
There are still some great gaming laptop deals running while there’s still some overhang from Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. While it’s still in stock, you can grab this one Razer Blade 15 for $800 off, which may well be the cheapest we see this series in a while.