Apple just made a slew of announcements this week. From the iPhone 17e to the new MacBook models, there was a lot to be excited about! One question did cross my mind as the announcements came along: did Apple get out unscathed against the global RAM (and NAND) shortage? The short answer is no, but I didn’t expect anyone to be unaffected. Despite said RAM shortage, Apple somehow managed to deliver a $599 MacBook Neo to the market.
A $599 MacBook Neo? During a RAM Shortage?!?
While Apple announced a lot of updates over the week, it was clear that there was something new in the end. The MacBook Neo is Apple’s clear first entry in the budget laptop segment at $599 for the base model (P39,990 in the Philippines Apple Online Store). Despite that price, it has the essentials of what a MacBook is: a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, the Magic Keyboard, a Multi-Touch trackpad, Apple Silicon, and of course, macOS.
Neo Laptop, Old Compromises
Apple did make some compromises to make the MacBook Neo. Here is the list of said compromises:
- using the A18 Pro chip from the iPhone 16 Pro (with a 5-core GPU instead of a 6-core)
- the keyboard doesn’t have a backlight
- has a physical trackpad instead of Force Touch
- no MagSafe 3 port; uses two USB-C ports only (left port is USB 3.0, right port is USB 2.0)
A major compromise of the MacBook Neo is the RAM and storage configuration. This laptop ONLY comes with 8GB of unified memory and either 256 or 512 GB of storage. While there will be people that find 8GB of RAM limiting, most of these compromises will be fine for most people.
MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Get Price Hikes… with a Twist!
If this was just a usual March product refresh, Apple would have just done the simple spec bump to the MacBook Air and the higher-end MacBook Pro models. We did get just that in the form of the MacBook Air with the M5 chip and MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.
However, we got some price hikes for those laptops:
- 13-inch MacBook Air with M5 chip starts at $1099 (from $999 with the M4)
- 15-inch MacBook Air with M5 chip starts at $1299 (from $1199 with the M4)
- 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro chip starts at $2199 (from $1999 with the M4 Pro)
- 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro chip starts at $2699 (from $2499 with the M4 Pro)
- 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Max chip starts at $3599 (from $3199 with the M4 Pro)
- 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Max chip starts at $3899 (from $3499 with the M4 Pro)
These price hikes did come with a twist though: DOUBLE THE STORAGE! This means that the MacBook Air now starts with 512GB of storage, the MacBook Pro with M5 Pro chip starts with 1TB of storage, and the M5 Max MacBook Pro starts with 2TB of storage.
Apple Somehow Makes the iPhone 17e a Good Deal
You would think Apple found ways to put more compromise on the successor to last year’s iPhone 16e. Not only did we get a new Soft Pink color and the A19 chip on the iPhone 17e, we somehow get MagSafe support and DOUBLE THE STORAGE here too! For $599 (P44,990 in PH), the 17e starts with 256GB of storage! This honestly surprised me considering there’s still a RAM shortage going on.
The iPhone 17e also rocks Apple’s N1 chip that enables support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread networking. It also has the C1X chip for cellular connectivity that’s more efficient.
Why Apple Can Weather the RAM Shortage (For Now)
If you’re wondering how Apple manages to navigate the RAM shortage in a more polished manner, here are some of the reasons why I think that’s the case:
- Using storage upgrades to soften the blow of price hikes
- Even Apple isn’t immune to the RAM shortage, but at least you get something out of the price hike.
- Even when prices go up, Apple CAN pay up (for now)
- While Apple has decades of supply chain experience and can lock down pricing for a long time, the RAM shortage changed the equation.
- Apple reportedly agreed to a 100% price hike on Samsung’s memory chips for the first half of 2026.
- The company even agreed to pay 2x for Kioxia’s NAND flash for the first quarter of 2026, with pricing to be adjusted in the future.
- Apple has multiple suppliers for both DRAM and NAND
- Since iPhone and MacBook scale is not enough for one company (unless you’re TSMC), Apple typically taps multiple suppliers for its DRAM and NAND supply.
Even with all those advantages, it’s still possible that Apple might have to do more drastic measures if the shortage gets worse. Here’s hoping Apple won’t suddenly make the next iPhone more expensive.