If You Need a Laptop for School, Buy It Sooner Rather Than Later This Year

Normally, the advice for buying a laptop is simple: wait for Black Friday. Prices drift down through the fall, the deals land in late November, and patience pays. This year, that calendar is being turned upside down. A global memory shortage is pushing laptop prices up heading into the exact months students shop — and our own Canadian price data already shows it happening. If you need a laptop for school, the smart move this year is to buy sooner rather than later.

Why the calendar flipped this year

The cause isn't retail strategy — it's the components. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have reallocated a large share of their manufacturing capacity toward high-margin AI memory. That has drained supply of the ordinary DRAM and NAND flash that goes into consumer laptops, and prices for those chips have spiked: DRAM contract prices are up roughly 90–95% and NAND 55–60%. Laptop makers Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, and HP have all publicly warned of device price increases in the range of 15–20% as those costs flow through.

In a typical year, none of that would touch a back-to-school shopper. This year, the increases are arriving right as the fall buying season begins — which is why "wait for the deal" is the wrong instinct in 2026.

This isn't a forecast — it's already in our data

We track prices across dozens of Canadian retailers. Looking only at laptops with enough price history to judge movement — at least two distinct price-days over the last 90 days — here's what the trend looks like right now:

Rising slightly outnumbering falling might not sound dramatic. But it's a reversal of the usual pre-fall drift, and the brands the manufacturers specifically warned about are the ones already moving.

Which brands are climbing

Breaking the same data down by brand shows the increases are concentrated — and that the OEM-warned brands (Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, HP) are already among the risers. "Share rising" is the portion of that brand's tracked laptops trending up; "risers up by" is how much those specific laptops have climbed on average.

A concrete example: the entry MacBook

If you want to see the shift in a single product, look at the entry-level MacBook Neo (A18 Pro, 256 GB). Apple's lineup has moved the least of any brand overall — but the models that are rising are rising just as fast as everyone else's.

What happens if the warned increases land

Here's the part to read carefully, because it's a scenario — not a prediction. Our data above is what has already happened. The following is arithmetic: if the 15–20% increases the manufacturers themselves have warned of arrive on the laptops that haven't moved yet, this is what it does to the budget end of the market.

Whether the full increase lands or not, the direction is the same, and it's the opposite of a normal year: the pressure on prices is upward, and it's aimed squarely at the affordable machines students actually buy.

So: buy sooner rather than later

The usual "wait for Black Friday" playbook assumes prices fall between now and late November. This year our data says the opposite is more likely — laptops are already climbing, the budget tier is the most exposed, and the manufacturers have told you increases are coming. That inverts the math:

• If you need a laptop for school, buy it now rather than gambling on a fall discount that may not come — and may be offset by a higher starting price.
• Prioritize the budget and mid-range tiers. Those are where the increases bite hardest; a sub-$1,000 machine bought today is the one most at risk of moving out of reach.
• Check the real price history, not just the "sale" tag. A discount off an already-inflated price isn't a deal. We show the lowest price we've actually recorded for each laptop so you can tell the difference.

None of this means panic-buying. It means the calendar you're used to doesn't apply in 2026. When the components get more expensive and the makers have already announced the hikes, "later" is the risk — not the reward.

Methodology & sources

Price movement observed from HomeGadgets.ca tracking of displayable Canadian laptops, July 1, 2026. Figures are computed on the 1,081 of 1,538 laptops (70%) with at least two distinct price-days in the trailing 90-day window (`hg_price_history` + `hg_price_stats`); laptops without enough history to judge movement are excluded. Trend and per-laptop % change compare the current price to that laptop's own price from more than 21 days earlier. Prices as of July 1, 2026 — Best Buy laptop prices updated the same day, most retailers within about two days.

External context (memory/DRAM/NAND capacity shift and the 15–20% device-price warnings from Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, and HP) is cited from public manufacturer and industry statements, not our own data. The "1 in 5 under $1,000" figure is a clearly labelled scenario applying the manufacturers' stated 15–20% range to current inventory — it is arithmetic, not a HomeGadgets forecast.

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