Earlier this week, Dell was wrongly flagged for charging even more than Apple for memory upgrades in their laptops, which later turned out to be a misinformed call; nevertheless, Framework was quick to pounce on the opportunity and call out fellow vendors, while warning its own RAM price hikes to follow soon.
We are going to need to increase our memory pricing soon, but we won’t use this as an excuse to gouge customers like @Dell apparently has and that @Apple does as their norm.December 9, 2025
The story begins with YouTuber Max Tech, aka Vadim Yuryev, who took to X in a now-deleted post to express his disappointment with laptop memory prices. In particular, he posted a screenshot from Dell's website, showing a Snapdragon X Plus-equipped XPS 13 with 16 GB of RAM. The issue? Going from 16 GB to 32 GB apparently cost a whopping $550... at least in the screenshot.
In reality, the upgrade's worth just $150 on Dell's site right now, at least on the laptop Yuryev's original tweet referenced. For context, Apple has charged $400 for the same 16 GB upgrade for years, way before any DRAM shortage, so people were rightfully shocked. However, as mentioned, this screenshot was either actually altered or, more likely, showed a $550 price hike because memory wasn't the only thing being upgraded.
See, Dell's laptop configurator works in a confusing manner where selecting certain options triggers others to automatically change, too. For instance, the jump from 16 GB to 32 GB RAM may have come with a jump in SSD capacity as well, or even a higher spec'd CPU, but since these changes happened silently in the background, they look like standalone charges for the RAM alone.
(Image credit: Future)
As you can see in our screenshot above, when you select the 32 GB RAM option, it prompts you to confirm the change since the CPU will be upgraded alongside it — from a Snapdragon X Plus to X Elite, so the total cost of the upgrade is $300, but Dell is offering a $150 discount on that. Try playing around with the configurator yourself to discover just how much of a maze it is, though you can still tell what's changing. A pricing error or perhaps a currency/region issue in the original screenshot also can't be ruled out, but one thing is certain: Dell definitely isn't charging $550 for 32GB of RAM. At least not yet anyway.
The OP must've realized his oversight after replies and media coverage pointed it out, at which point he deleted the original post. Unfortunately, Framework already replied with a scathing post, letting users know that it'll need to raise memory prices soon as well, but that it won't overcharge customers like "apparently" Dell and Apple. A point made based on erroneous information, but perhaps deserved nonetheless.
Our upgrade from 16GB to 32GB of RAM is… $80. https://t.co/0MPUfQxx0W pic.twitter.com/VSTY6lkSF8December 9, 2025
Framework's tweet remains up, but the post above it from Vadim is gone. However, Framework's point that its memory upgrades are more affordable than rival laptop makers (for now) still stands. Moving forward, that will change. "We are going to need to increase our memory pricing soon," Framework warned in a follow-up. "But we won’t use this as an excuse to gouge customers like Dell apparently has, and that Apple does as their norm," the company added. Only time will tell when Framework will increase its prices and by how much. A few weeks ago, the company stopped selling standalone RAM in order to stop the supply from being consumed by scalpers.
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