Minh is 26 years old, works as a salesman in Hanoi and has just collected about 18.5 million VND to buy a laptop. The device he was aiming for was the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 being sold at CellphoneS, but he still intended to wait until the year-end sale to get a few hundred thousand cheaper.

A few days ago, a photo spread online quoting TeamGroup saying that RAM prices could continue to increase by 30% to 40% each quarter. Previously, this company told investors on November 2 that the memory chip shortage had not yet peaked. After reading, Minh paused, and his question was also the question of many brothers who were holding money: if I waited a few more months, how much more expensive would the machine I was planning to buy be?

Pho restaurants always slice the meat thinly first

Just imagine that each laptop is a bowl of pho, and RAM and SSD are the beef in the bowl. In recent years, the slaughterhouse's biggest customers have been AI data centers, because they pay high prices and sign long-term purchases. TeamGroup leader Gerry Chen said demand from AI alone accounts for 40% to 50% of total memory supply. He also said that most memory chips made in the next two years have already been pre-ordered.

Laptop companies can therefore only buy the remaining meat at a much higher price. According to TrendForce, in early 2025, CPU, RAM and SSD only accounted for about 45% of the component cost of a mid-range laptop. By the third quarter of 2026, this portion has swelled to about 68%.

When the price of meat increases, the restaurant owner has three options: increase the price of the bowl, take a loss or slice the meat thinner. Pho restaurants always choose to slice the meat thinner before increasing the price, because customers look at the price tag on the wall, but few people bring a scale to weigh the meat. Laptop companies do the same thing. Acer President Chen Junsheng admitted at the end of 2025 that there were laptop models that had half of their RAM cut.

Go to a store in Vietnam now and you'll see it right away. The IdeaPad Slim 3 office version and the Lenovo LOQ gaming version both only have 8GB RAM when sold. According to Phong Vu's listed price list, if you want to double the RAM of the IdeaPad Slim 3, you have to spend about 3.5 million VND more.

That's just the sliced ​​meat, the real price hasn't increased yet. TrendForce calculates that the laptop company must increase prices by about 80% compared to the beginning of 2025 to maintain the old profit level. But IDC forecasts that the average selling price of computers in 2026 will only increase by 18.3%, meaning the difference is being covered by cheap imported inventory. When inventory runs out, TrendForce warns that the difference will go straight to the price tag.

The figure of 30% per quarter is the meat price of top customers

The 30% quarterly rate that Minh read was actually the price of memory chips sold for servers, not the price of the laptop he intended to buy. Mr. Gerry Chen said this number in an interview with the Japanese website Hermitage Akihabara. As for RAM in laptops and phones, TrendForce only forecasts contract prices in the fourth quarter of 2026 to increase by 10% to 15%.

When beef is expensive, a bowl of pho is only a fraction more expensive, because there are cakes, broth and rent. The price of memory chips increased by 40%, the cost price of the laptop only increased by about 12%, and the company still had to calculate how much to push to customers.

One thing that few people pay attention to is that the cheaper the machine, the more meat takes up in the bowl. Office machines almost only have CPUs, RAM and hard drives, while gaming machines put money into graphics cards, screens and heatsinks. The three Lenovo devices being sold at major dealers in November 2026 are taken as landmarks, from office machines, introductory game consoles to high-end game consoles. The input is Jefferies' forecast, which calls for full-year 2027 memory prices to be 40% to 45% higher.

In the base scenario, the IdeaPad Slim 3 that Minh targets will cost about 1.4 million VND more, or nearly 4 days of work for a male worker. According to the Department of Statistics, male workers in the third quarter of 2026 earned an average of about 10.3 million VND per month. The Legion 5 is more expensive, but only about a 4.5% increase, less than two-thirds the increase of an office machine.

Waiting until 2028 is still not as cheap as today

Jefferies forecasts memory prices could fall 15% to 20% by 2028, as new factories start running. But the retail price goes up quickly and goes down slowly, so it's difficult for Minh's machine to return to the correct price today. Of the four downtimes, the person who buys this month is still the one who pays the least.

This memory chip shortage does not divide the losses equally among everyone who buys the device. Top AI customers get priority on the delicious meat, the restaurant thinly slices pho first before considering raising the price, and the cheapest bowl is the bowl that misses the most meat. When TeamGroup said that the peak of the shortage was still ahead, people like Minh only had one thing to know: the time to withdraw their wallets, because the configuration and selling price were already decided by others. Next year's bowl of laptop pho will have less meat, not because of the figure of 30% per quarter, but because the memory chip oven has always sold delicious portions to customers who pay such high prices.

• Minh is the illustration model character. The machine price according to each scenario is the author's estimate, not the forecast of any research organization.

• Selling price after direct discount at CellphoneS recorded on November 4, 2026: Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 14IWC11 83RQ002PVN 18,490,000 VND, Lenovo LOQ 15IRH11E 83Y9003VVN 26,990,000 VND (Phong Vu same price), Lenovo Legion 5 15IRX10 83LY00HRVN 48,990,000 VND. Prices do not include old fees, renewals or gifts and may change daily. The difference is about 3.5 million VND between the 8GB version (83RQ002PVN) and the 16GB version (83RQ002NVN) of IdeaPad Slim 3 calculated according to Phong Vu's listed price.

• Estimated model: the increase in selling price is equal to the proportion of memory chips in the selling price multiplied by the increase in the price of memory chips multiplied by the rate the company transfers to buyers. The proportion of memory chips in the assumed selling price is 28% for office machines, 24% for entry-level game consoles and 16% for high-end game consoles. Slight scenario: memory chips increase by 20%, the company transfers 50%. Base scenario: increase 40%, transfer 70%. Severe scenario: 45% increase, full transfer. The 2028 milestone applies a 17.5% reduction in memory chips to the base case price, with a 70% conversion rate. The model does not include exchange rates, taxes and CPU prices.

• Working days are calculated based on the average income of 10.3 million VND per month of male workers in the third quarter of 2026 (Department of Statistics), divided by 26 working days.

• Source: TrendForce (announced March, September and October 2026, laptop model suggested price 900 USD); IDC (PC market forecast in 2026); Jefferies (memory price forecast for the third quarter of 2026 to 2028, according to Tom's Hardware and TechSpot); TeamGroup (investor event November 2, 2026 according to MyDrivers and Hardwareluxx, interview on Hermitage Akihabara); Acer Chairman Chen Junsheng (Economic Daily News, VietNamNet cited December 17, 2025).