Amazon is making a return, of sorts, to physical retail via plans to build a big-box retail store in the Chicago suburbs, The Information reports. The 225,000-square foot retail space will open in Orland Park, Illinois, and give the company the opportunity to sell more than just groceries after it closed most of its physical bookstores and gift shops in 2022.
The new store will offer in-store shopping, but also act as a fulfillment center for online orders, which could make it similar to competitors like Target and Walmart, and some of Amazon's existing Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh locations. "The proposed development will offer a wide selection of products, including groceries and general merchandise, with accessory services and potentially dining locations for prepared food sold onsite," Amazon wrote in a planning document The Information viewed.
While best known as an online marketplace, Amazon has made multiple attempts to have a physical retail presence. Amazon Books sold books based on what was trending on the company's website, Amazon 4-star sold a variety of products that were rated four or more stars in Amazon reviews and the company's Amazon Go stores sold pre-made food and select groceries via its cashier-less "Just Walk Out" technology.
Amazon has abandoned basically all those experiments in favor of sticking with the grocery brand it bought in 2017, Whole Foods, and the new one it’s formed in the years since, Amazon Fresh. This new store could be an entirely new concept, or an evolution of Amazon Fresh, but whatever it is, it'll have to be approved by the Orland Park Village Board to move forward, according to the Chicago Tribune.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-is-apparently-planning-a-big-box-store-in-the-chicago-suburbs-213451978.html?src=rss
The start of the new year is a great time to get your finances in order, and a good budgeting app can help with that. Instead of laboring over a spreadsheet, you can try one of our favorite budgeting apps for less than usual. Monarch Money is running a sale that gives new users 50 percent off one year of the service, bringing the final cost down to just $50. Just use the code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout to get the discount.
Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android, iPadOS or the web, and Monarch also offers a Chrome extension that can sync your Amazon and Target transactions and automatically categorize them. Like other budgeting apps, Monarch Money lets you connect multiple financial accounts and track your money based on where you spend it over time. Monarch offers two different approaches to tracking budgeting (flexible and category budgeting) depending on what fits your life best, and the ability to add a budget widget on your phone so you can know how you're tracking that month.
How budgeting apps turn your raw transactions into visuals you can understand at a glance is one of the big things that differentiates one app from another, and Monarch Money offers multiple graphs and charts to look at for things like spending, investments or categories of your choice based on how you've labelled your expenses. The app can also monitor the spending of you and your partner all in one place, to make it easier to plan together.
The main drawbacks Engadget found in testing Monarch Money were the app's learning curve, and the differences in features (and bugginess) between Monarch's web and mobile versions. Still, for 50 percent off, the Monarch Money is well worth experimenting with if you're trying to save money in 2026, especially if you want to do it collaboratively with a partner.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/monarch-money-is-offering-50-percent-off-its-budgeting-app-for-new-users-204507767.html?src=rss
Almost every mobile controller assumes you want to play in landscape, snapping your phone into a wide handheld that feels great for modern shooters and racing games. This works for most titles, but when you fire up Game Boy-era platformers or vertical arcade classics, the experience feels slightly off, like forcing old games into a shape they were never meant to inhabit, holding them sideways while your thumbs reach for controls that never land right.
GameSir’s Pocket Taco leans into portrait play instead of fighting it, turning your phone into something closer to a classic handheld. It first appeared as the Pocket 1 at Tokyo Game Show, then resurfaced as Pocket Taco just as 8BitDo teased its own vertical FlipPad, setting up a clash of design philosophies aimed at people who want to hold their phones the way they held Game Boys.
The rebrand to Pocket Taco fits the design; the controller clamps to the bottom of your phone like a taco shell. The foldable front accommodates different phone sizes, and soft silicone pads line the clamp area so you are not grinding plastic against glass every time you snap it on, which matters when you pull it out multiple times a day for quick sessions between meetings or commutes.
The control layout separates Pocket Taco from 8BitDo’s FlipPad. Pocket Taco gives you a traditional D-pad, ABXY face buttons, and actual triggers and bumpers on the back. FlipPad keeps everything on the front in a row of circular buttons, which is clever for compactness but less like the shoulder-button ergonomics many players expect from dedicated handhelds, especially during games with heavy simultaneous inputs.
Pocket Taco uses Bluetooth, so it can talk to Android and iOS phones, tablets, and other devices, and it still works when not clamped. FlipPad plugs in over USB-C, which keeps latency low and removes battery anxiety, but ties it to phones with that port and to a tethered style where the controller must stay attached to function at all.
One practical touch is the large cutout at the bottom that leaves your phone’s charging port accessible while the controller is attached, so you can plug in and keep going during long sessions. FlipPad occupies the USB-C port and does not offer passthrough charging, which is fine for short bursts but less ideal for marathon runs that drain the phone before you finish the dungeon.
Pocket Taco runs on a 600 mAh battery with smart power behavior, open to play, close to rest. The trade-off is one more battery to watch and slightly more bulk. FlipPad stays slimmer and battery-free, but leans on your phone for power, shifting the burden and adding a small drain to your phone’s battery during long play sessions.
Pocket Taco and FlipPad are two paths toward the same fantasy, turning a slab of glass into a dedicated retro handheld. Pocket Taco leans into wireless freedom, proper triggers, and charging-while-playing practicality, while FlipPad bets on wired simplicity and a flatter front. For anyone who grew up holding a Game Boy vertically, it is nice to have options that respect that muscle memory instead of pretending mobile gaming should feel like a miniature Xbox stuck in landscape.
Almost every mobile controller assumes you want to play in landscape, snapping your phone into a wide handheld that feels great for modern shooters and racing games. This works for most titles, but when you fire up Game Boy-era platformers or vertical arcade classics, the experience feels slightly off, like forcing old games into a shape they were never meant to inhabit, holding them sideways while your thumbs reach for controls that never land right.
GameSir’s Pocket Taco leans into portrait play instead of fighting it, turning your phone into something closer to a classic handheld. It first appeared as the Pocket 1 at Tokyo Game Show, then resurfaced as Pocket Taco just as 8BitDo teased its own vertical FlipPad, setting up a clash of design philosophies aimed at people who want to hold their phones the way they held Game Boys.
The rebrand to Pocket Taco fits the design; the controller clamps to the bottom of your phone like a taco shell. The foldable front accommodates different phone sizes, and soft silicone pads line the clamp area so you are not grinding plastic against glass every time you snap it on, which matters when you pull it out multiple times a day for quick sessions between meetings or commutes.
The control layout separates Pocket Taco from 8BitDo’s FlipPad. Pocket Taco gives you a traditional D-pad, ABXY face buttons, and actual triggers and bumpers on the back. FlipPad keeps everything on the front in a row of circular buttons, which is clever for compactness but less like the shoulder-button ergonomics many players expect from dedicated handhelds, especially during games with heavy simultaneous inputs.
Pocket Taco uses Bluetooth, so it can talk to Android and iOS phones, tablets, and other devices, and it still works when not clamped. FlipPad plugs in over USB-C, which keeps latency low and removes battery anxiety, but ties it to phones with that port and to a tethered style where the controller must stay attached to function at all.
One practical touch is the large cutout at the bottom that leaves your phone’s charging port accessible while the controller is attached, so you can plug in and keep going during long sessions. FlipPad occupies the USB-C port and does not offer passthrough charging, which is fine for short bursts but less ideal for marathon runs that drain the phone before you finish the dungeon.
Pocket Taco runs on a 600 mAh battery with smart power behavior, open to play, close to rest. The trade-off is one more battery to watch and slightly more bulk. FlipPad stays slimmer and battery-free, but leans on your phone for power, shifting the burden and adding a small drain to your phone’s battery during long play sessions.
Pocket Taco and FlipPad are two paths toward the same fantasy, turning a slab of glass into a dedicated retro handheld. Pocket Taco leans into wireless freedom, proper triggers, and charging-while-playing practicality, while FlipPad bets on wired simplicity and a flatter front. For anyone who grew up holding a Game Boy vertically, it is nice to have options that respect that muscle memory instead of pretending mobile gaming should feel like a miniature Xbox stuck in landscape.
We’re wrapping up coverage of the biggest tech show in the world. CES 2026 is almost over, and while we have more stories and wrap-ups to come, here are the most interesting products we’ve spotted, written about and critiqued/praised. That includes our picks for the best of CES. We gave out 15 awards as well as our best of show, and you might be surprised by some of our picks — I know I was.
Read on for some of the best things to come out of Las Vegas this week, but first up, our Best of the Best winner, which was Lego Smart Play. As Engadget’s editor-in-chief Aaron Souppouris put it, “Lego could almost be seen as the antithesis of the typical CES product.”
Regardless of trends, Lego has always persisted. And in 2026, it’s getting much smarter.
The system consists of a Smart Brick, Tags and Minifigures. They’re packed with modern technology, so they can respond to how you play with them or the sets you build. The Smart Brick has a 4.1mm ASIC chip, which Lego says is smaller than a standard Lego stud. It senses things like motion, orientation and magnetic fields, but also has a tiny built-in speaker, which produces audio “tied to live play actions,” not just canned clips.
It’s hard to explain it in only a few words (we’ve got a deep-dive hands-on right here), but what immediately drew me in was the lack of smartphone pairing and screens. The ability of each part to detect and interact with others can lead to some ridiculous setups, whether it’s ducks and police officers or a helicopter or an X-Wing.
Naturally, it’s a little pricier than basic Lego, but not out of the realm of being a special gift or birthday present. One of the first sets, with a smart Darth Vader Minifigure, one Smart Brick and one Smart Tag, is $70.
We'll be back to our regularly scheduled newsletter next week. Have a great weekend!
On Monday, which feels like an age ago, Jensen Huang shared the latest from NVIDIA. While the presentation was more a refresher than a barrage of new announcements, it was a pretty low-key presentation, with lots of AI chat. One announcement was Alpamayo, a family of open-source reasoning models designed to guide autonomous vehicles through difficult driving situations. The centerpiece is Alpamayo 1, a 10-billion-parameter chain-of-thought system NVIDIA says can drive more like a human.
When it comes to tech we all might use, we had to wait for a separate event, when NVIDIA announced DLSS 4.5 and G-Sync Pulsar. For both features, you’ll need a 50-series GPU. You got one, right?
Meta's messaging app WhatsApp could soon be subject to deeper scrutiny (and punishment) under the European Commission's Digital Services Act, Reuters reports. Because the app's broadcasting feature WhatsApp Channels grew to around 51.7 million average monthly active users in the European Union in the first six months of 2025, the feature has crossed the 45-million-person barrier that lets DSA rules apply.
A platform is designated as a "very large online platform" or VLOP once it has 45 million monthly users or more, according to the European Commission. Once an app or service passes that amount, it's subject to the DSA and all its rules about how digital platforms should operate, particularly around removing illegal or harmful content. Companies can be fined up to six percent of their global annual revenue for not complying with the DSA.
WhatsApp traditionally functions as a private messaging app, but its Channels feature, which lets users make one-sided posts to anyone who follows their channel, does look a lot more like Meta's other social media platforms. "So here we would indeed designate potentially WhatsApp for WhatsApp Channels and I can confirm that the Commission is actively looking into it and I wouldn't exclude a future designation," a Commission spokesperson said in a daily news briefing Reuters viewed.
Engadget has asked Meta to comment on WhatsApp’s possible new designation. We’ll update this article if we hear back.
The possibility that WhatsApp could become a regulatory target in the EU was first reported in November 2025, but Meta has been dealing with DSA-related fines since well before then. Meta was charged with violating the EU law in October 2025 because of how it asks users to report illegal content on Facebook and Instagram. Earlier that month, a Dutch court also ordered the company to change how it presents the timelines on its platforms because people in the Netherlands were not "sufficiently able to make free and autonomous choices about the use of profiled recommendation systems" in the company's apps.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/whatsapp-might-soon-be-subject-to-stricter-scrutiny-under-the-eus-digital-services-act-191000354.html?src=rss
For most designers and filmmakers, storage is the quiet problem that never gets a mood board. Projects start on phones, move through cameras and laptops, and end up scattered across drives and cloud folders that you half remember naming six months ago. CES 2026 is full of AI-driven devices and next-gen connectivity, but DigiEra’s booth is interesting because it treats storage as part of the creative environment, not just a spec to tick off on a spreadsheet.
The lineup tells a single story across four products. OmniCore is the modular, all-flash AI NAS that wants to be the studio’s private brain. Endura is the rugged field drive that can live in a bag without babying. Portable Hub SSD is the tiny block that turns a phone or camera into a serious capture and editing station. The Diamond Magnetic Portable SSD is the piece that lives on the back of an iPhone, turning storage into something closer to jewelry than IT gear.
Designer: DigiEra
OmniCore: AI NAS as a Private Studio Brain
The pain of hunting for assets across old drives and cloud accounts is real. OmniCore is DigiEra’s answer, a modular all-flash AI NAS designed to sit in a studio and quietly index everything. It supports up to 80 TB of SSD storage across eight 2.5-inch SATA bays and two M.2 slots, all hot-swappable, so the box can grow with a studio instead of being replaced every time a project spikes in size or a client asks for all the raw footage from three years ago.
OmniCore is not just a fast box of drives. A Rockchip RK3588 CPU, 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and a 6 TOPS NPU let it run AI tasks locally, from automatic image tagging and semantic search to transcription, document analysis, conversational chat, and clip generation. That means a designer can type “blue packaging concept with foil logo” and have the NAS surface relevant shots, instead of scrolling through folders named final underscore final underscore v3.
The privacy-first angle matters here. OmniCore is designed to work fully offline, with no cloud dependency, which is important when client work, unreleased campaigns, or personal archives cannot leave the building. Dual LAN ports, including 2.5 GbE, and Wi-Fi 6 support let it serve multiple editors or designers at once without feeling like a bottleneck, and Docker support means it can host custom tools alongside its own AI engine for people who need more than a basic file server.
The physical experience is part of the design. The cube-like form factor with front-loading SSD modules makes storage feel tangible and approachable, more like a card catalog than a server rack. Drives slide in and out on small trays, so expanding from a few terabytes to tens of terabytes is a matter of minutes, not a weekend migration project where everything has to stop. For small studios, that kind of modularity is as much a design decision as a technical one.
Endura Portable SSD: Rugged Speed with a Material Story
Endura is the drive that lives in the camera bag and follows people to shoots. DigiEra bills it as the world’s first portable SSD with an aluminum–carbon-fiber shell, rated IP65 for water, dust, and shock resistance. That combination of materials gives it a technical, motorsport-like feel, while also signaling that it can handle being tossed into a backpack, clipped to a rig, or dropped on a sidewalk without needing a protective case wrapped around a protective case.
Under the shell, Endura uses USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 over USB-C, delivering up to 2,000 MB/s read and 1,800 MB/s write speeds in capacities from 512 GB to 4 TB. For photographers dumping RAW stills between locations or filmmakers backing up cards on set, that means less time watching progress bars and more time shooting, with a drive that looks like it belongs in a design-conscious kit and can survive the environments where most shoots actually happen.
Portable Hub SSD: One Block to Replace the Dongle Pile
The Portable Hub SSD is the antidote to the usual tangle of hubs, drives, and chargers. It wraps the same 20 Gbps SSD core in a compact aluminum block that also acts as a hub, combining high-speed storage, PD fast charging, and extra USB-C connectivity. Plug it into a phone, tablet, or laptop, and it becomes both a scratch disk and an expansion port, turning one cable into a complete mobile workstation.
The fold-out USB-C plug and side ports make it particularly friendly to iPhones and USB-C cameras. Instead of hanging a drive and a hub off a gimbal or handheld rig, one block adds space for ProRes or LOG footage and passes power through to keep the phone or camera alive. For designers who sketch on tablets or edit on ultraportables, it is the kind of object that quietly simplifies the everyday carry, handling data and power from a single point without adding bulk or visual noise.
Diamond Magnetic Portable SSD: Storage as Visible Accessory
The Diamond Magnetic Portable SSD is the piece that never leaves the phone. It snaps magnetically to the back of an iPhone 15 or 16 Pro and records 4K 60 FPS ProRes video directly to external storage, lifting the ceiling on how long you can shoot without cages, rigs, or bulky battery grips. For content creators who rely on their phone as a primary camera, that is a big shift in what is possible with a pocket-sized setup.
The diamond-encrusted, circular design makes the drive look closer to a compact mirror or piece of jewelry than a tech accessory. Underneath, it still runs USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 over USB-C at up to 2,000 MB/s read and 1,800 MB/s write, in capacities up to 4 TB. That mix of performance and visual polish means it can stay on the phone in a meeting, a shoot, or a café without feeling out of place, turning storage into something you actually want to show rather than hide in a pocket until needed.
DigiEra at CES 2026: Turning Storage into a Creative Toolkit
OmniCore anchors the studio as a private, AI-enabled brain that knows where every file lives and can answer questions in natural language. Endura and Portable Hub SSD handle the messy middle, moving data safely and quickly between cameras, phones, and laptops, with materials and form factors that feel deliberate rather than generic. The Diamond Magnetic SSD lives on the phone, turning storage into something you actually want to show. That is DigiEra’s real story at CES 2026: storage treated not as an afterthought or a cloud subscription, but as a set of designed objects that respect the way creative work actually moves through the day, from the pocket to the field to the desk and back.
If you're looking to up your privacy game on the internet in the new year, you can do so for a little less than usual thanks to ExpressVPN's latest deal. Its two-year plans are up to 78 percent off right now: the Advanced tier is on sale for $101 for two years, plus four additional free months. That works out to $3.59 per month during the promotional period.
We’ve consistently liked ExpressVPN because it’s fast, easy to use and widely available across a large global server network. In fact, it's our current pick for best premium VPN. One of the biggest drawbacks has always been its high cost, and this deal temporarily solves that issue.
In our review we were able to get fast download and upload speeds, losing only 7 percent in the former and 2 percent in the latter worldwide. We found that it could unblock Netflix anywhere, and its mobile and desktop apps were simple to operate. We gave ExpressVPN an overall score of 85 out of 100.
The virtual private network service now has three tiers. Basic is cheaper with fewer features, while Pro costs more and adds extra perks like support for 14 simultaneous devices and a password manager. Advanced sits in the middle and includes the password manager but only supports 12 devices.
The Basic plan is $78 right now for 28 months, down from $363, and the Pro plan is $168, down from $560. That's 78 percent and 70 percent off, respectively. All plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee for new users, so you can try it without committing long term if you’re on the fence.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/expressvpn-deal-two-year-plans-are-up-to-78-percent-off-180602243.html?src=rss
Every third booth at CES showed off some new AI product or other. If you wanted to find a robotic lawn mower, throw a rock. Humanoid robots, smart locks and super thin TVs were everywhere. But if you went looking for sustainability products, you’re going to have to hunt a bit.
Last year, the Sustainability section at the Las Vegas Convention Center had 20 booths. This year, there were 38, but that’s in part due to the combination of the energy and sustainability categories. So exhibitors like South Korea’s largest electric utility company, a nuclear power company from the same country and lots of battery manufacturers. There was also an AI data platform booth in the section that had nothing to do with sustainability as far as I can tell. Guess the organizers just ran out of room for all the AI.
Within the sustainability section, and at other CES venues, I found a few encouraging displays of sustainable products — organizations and devices that were trying to address the multitude of problems the world is facing when it comes to energy production, climate and pollution.
But none of it quite achieved Engadget’s best of CES status this year. Some of what we saw was utility-scale, some wasn’t quite ready for consumer consumption and other stuff was too niche or had too many caveats to make the list. I won’t go so far as to say sustainability is dead at CES, because that sends me into dark downward spirals, but it’s getting sparse out there, friends.
Here are the companies I saw that had promise and innovative ideas. And gosh darn it, at least these guys are trying.
Shine Turbine 2.0
Spinning the Shine 2.0 wind turbine
Amy Skorheim for Engadget
This little guy could be a precursor to some serious personal wind power generation. That’s where the company is heading. For now, the Shine 2.0 can use as little as a light breeze to start generating power to charge your smartphones, laptops or even a power station. The whole unit weighs three pounds and sets up in around two minutes. The second generation model can output up to 75 watts and the company is working on a third version that goes up to 100 watts for even more substantial energy production.
Flint batteries break down by 70 percent in four weeks in a compost pile.
Amy Skorheim for Engadget
When I approached Flint’s booth, the rep told me the company made cellulose batteries. And I thought, like paper-wrapped batteries? Nope. The chemicals inside the batteries are made from cellulose. They have a solvent-free, lithium-free, PFAS-free chemistry and break down by 70 percent in four weeks in a composting environment. They use the same basic architecture as a lithium-ion cell, with an anode, cathode and separator with ion transfers between the two. As of now, Flint is focused on partnering with manufacturers, and consumer products are on the horizon.
The Clear Drop soft plastics compactor next to a pile of the bricks it produces.
Amy Skorheim for Engadget
The Clear Drop is a soft plastics compactor that creates eight by twelve by four-inch bricks out of hundreds of grocery bags, bubble wrap, ziplocks and plastic packaging. One brick is equivalent to a 30-pound trash bag-worth of bags. Once the brick is created, it can be shipped to one of Clear Drop’s partner facilities in a pre-paid USPS shipping envelope. They currently work with a few US-based recycling facilities and hope to one day create an infrastructure to include municipal recycling.
From what I’ve learned at the show, perovskite is the hottest thing in solar right now. It’s a mineral compound that’s been used to create more efficient solar panels. Some so sensitive to light that just indoor illumination is enough to create usable energy. Alpha Power by CPTI creates lightweight, flexible perovskite solar panels that can conform to multiple surfaces. Again, this is a company that’s partnering with manufacturers, so look for panels built into your laptop to charge it under the glare of your too-harsh office lights.
3D models of buildings using Green Vigor technology.
Amy Skorheim for Engadget
Down in the lower levels of the Venetian Expo at CES I found Green Vigor in the Hong Kong pavilion. This small company has two solutions to create energy for buildings by harnessing the potential energy from existing systems. HydroVigor generates power from water systems. So every time someone washes their hands or flushes a toilet in a building, the roof-top system generates a bit of power. CoolVigor uses the same principles to harness energy from HVAC systems. HydroVigor is currently in use in many buildings in Singapore and Hong Kong and they’re working to expand to more buildings globally.
This outdoor hangout spot can produce up to 10kWh of power on a given day. It’s a modular design that lets you choose louvered walls, sunshades, lights and fans when you order it and the solar panels are so strong that a full-sized human Jackery rep was able to stand on a sample panel in front of me and nothing cracked (though the company officially rates it at 20 pounds of snow per square foot). You can use the power directly, tie it into your home system, feed it into the grid or hook it up to one of Jackery’s many power stations to save the power for later. The gazebo costs $12,000 and will ship in mid-2026.
Bluetti, like Jackery, is known for its vast lineup of portable and fixed power stations and batteries. This year, it brought a new power station made with bio-based plastic as well as a DIY system for adding solar power to your existing RV.
Airloom's roller coaster-like wind power generator for data centers.
Amy Skorheim for Engadget
Engadget’s Anna Washenko does a great job of explaining the tech behind Airloom. In short it’s a roller coaster for wind that’s comprised of 40 percent less mass than a standard wind turbine and uses 42 percent fewer parts and 96 percent fewer unique parts. That makes it faster to deploy and cheaper to instal. I can also be sited in more places. Again, this is a utility-scale solution, geared towards data centers and their insatiable need for energy to power Very Important AI Things.
Gaotu had a range of solar products in various formats.
Amy Skorheim for Engadget
If you are looking for a solar-powered anything, hit up Gaotu. At the company’s booth, I saw hats, a fishing chair, a backpack, a sunbrella and a car roof-top enclosure that unfurls to charge up your Tesla. The Shenzhen-based company has been in business for 18 years and plans to just keep sticking solar panels on anything it can.
The single largest booth in the CES sustainability section was Segway. This year, the company showed off two new e-bikes, which our own Dan Cooper covered. This one here is the Muxi, a cargo bike with an easily swappable battery, an optional passenger seat with foot pegs and an optional middle basket. Plus a beverage cup holder.
If we don’t all fall into the ocean before then, perhaps CES 2027 will have a stronger showing of sustainability tech. In the meantime, I’ll take a modicum of comfort in these few brave organizations still dedicated to keeping us afloat.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/ces-so-very-big-so-little-sustainability-tech-180000648.html?src=rss
Dell's XPS 14 currently costs over $2,000. An AMD executive predicts that PC builders will likely make piecemeal upgrades this year, instead of building entirely new systems. And new AI supercomputers from NVIDIA and AMD are gobbling up the RAM market. At CES 2026, it was hard not to notice the dire year ahead for the computing industry, one that will likely lead to higher prices and more limited availability for consumer goods across the board.
Really, though, the show just confirmed what was apparent since RAM prices skyrocketed over the last few months, driven by demand from AI datacenters. As Samsung's marketing leader, Wonjin Lee, told Bloomberg at CES: "There's going to be issues around semiconductor supplies, and it's going to affect everyone. Prices are going up even as we speak."
At first, it appeared that Dell's new XPS 14 and XPS 16 were among the earliest systems hit by these demands. Last year's models started at $1,699 and $1,899, respectively, and we were initially told the new models would actually come in cheaper at $1,650 and $1,850. At the moment, the XPS 14 starts at $2,050, while the XPS 16 is $2,200. A Dell representative tells us these aren’t entry-level configurations, instead we can expect to see cheaper systems below $2,000 in February. While those prices haven’t been finalized, the reps say it should be similar to the earlier figures we were given.
It’s also worth noting that it didn't take much to configure the earlier models upwards of $2,000. It’s just unfortunate that Dell doesn’t have cheaper configurations available for the launch if its new systems, especially since they look so compelling. Meanwhile, Apple still hasn't budged its $1,599 MacBook Pro 14-inch pricing. At least Dell still comes in cheaper than the $2,499 MacBook Pro 16-inch.
On the desktop front, AMD's David McAfee, Corporate Vice President and GM of Client Channel Business, noted that the longevity of the company's AM4 and AM5 platforms might be a boon for gamers, since they can upgrade their CPUs without buying new RAM kits and motherboards. That allows for a pathway to better performance without paying out the nose for over-priced RAM.
"I think that will be potentially a trend that we see in 2026 with more component upgrades, as opposed to full system swap outs and, and altogether rebuilds," he said in a group interview with Engadget and other outlets. "Some of the most popular CPUs that are still running in gamers’ platforms are parts like the 2600 back to the Pinnacle Ridge days, or 3000 series... Stepping even from there into a little bit more modern 5,000 series processors in an AM4 socket and motherboard, there's a pretty big boost there."
McAfee added that around 30 to 40 percent of AMD's business still revolves around the AM4 platform, even without the specter of a wild memory market.
"There's no product that has memory in it that's immune to some of these forces around DRAM pricing and, and what it's doing to the market," he said, when asked about potential GPU price increases. "I think the, the truth is the volatility that we've seen over the past two months or so has really been unprecedented."
Looking ahead, he said he expects prices to settle within the first three to six months of the year, but he didn't discuss his reasoning further. As an aside, he also noted that AMD's X3D chips, which feature 3D V-cache, actually don't see much of a hit from slower RAM. Their high amounts of onboard L2 and L3 cache make up for less ideal memory transfer speeds, McAfee said.
That McAfee commented at all about the state of RAM is noteworthy. Every PC maker I’ve asked, including Dell and Acer, refused to comment on the volatile state of the memory industry ahead of CES. Perhaps they were hoping things would calm down before they had to price their new systems. Ultimately, they’re beholden to an increasingly limited supply of RAM.
And where is all that memory going? At CES, NVIDIA announced its new Vera Rubin AI supercomputer, which supports up to 54TB of RAM across 36 Vera CPUs and 20.7TB of memory across 72 GPUs. AMD, as well, announced its new Helios AI rack, which supports up to 31TB of memory across 72 AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs. Given the endless appetite for computing to power AI model building and inferencing, there’s likely going to be a significant demand for these beastly systems.
Put simply: Our global supply of memory is being sacrificed to appease the AI industry. That’s good news for the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft and NVIDIA, but bad news for anyone who cares about PCs and the consumer products we use every day. Get ready for a year of price hikes.
Update 1/12, 3:00p: Added a mention of lower entry-level configurations coming eventually.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/ces-2026-proved-the-pc-industry-is-hosed-this-year-174500314.html?src=rss
