Stevie Bonifield

is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI.

Demand for new PCs took a hit after months of price hikes, with Counterpoint Research reporting global PC shipments fell 21 percent year-over-year in Q3 2026. That’s in line with earlier reports from IDC and Omdia. It’s not just PCs, either — that same quarter, smartphone shipments also hit a 14-year low .

Counterpoint linked the decline in PC shipments to higher component prices. Up until Q2 2026 , PC shipments had been growing for over two years straight. But over the last several months, RAM, SSDs , and chips from Intel , AMD , and Qualcomm have all gotten more expensive, leading to price hikes on everything from MacBooks to Raspberry Pis .…