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| PC World - 2 Apr (PC World)The Nintendo Switch 2 might be landing tomorrow—if not, then at least we should be getting details about pre-ordering and when to expect the handheld to arrive. If you plan on getting one, then it’s time to start preparing… and one thing you’ll want is extra storage space for games.
That means you’re going to need a fast and spacious microSD card, and it just so happens that SanDisk’s special 256GB microSD card is only $21 at Amazon right now. This one’s licensed for the Nintendo Switch and themed with a Mario Super Star, plus performant enough to handle your games with aplomb. With a 22% discount, this is a fun and practical get.
This SanDisk microSD card supports read speeds of up to 100 MB/s and write speeds of up to 90 MB/s, which is enough to move files and save data in a flash while reliably backing up all your game data. And even though rumors say that the Nintendo Switch 2 will feature a bit more storage space than the Switch, it’s way too easy to run out of space with how big modern games have gotten. One microSD card is the minimum!
So take advantage of this timely deal and get yourself the 256GB SanDisk Nintendo Switch microSD card on sale before the Switch 2 launches. (Other themes are also on sale, but not at this price. The Pikachu version is $30 while the Fortnite Cuddle Team Leader version is $26. All of them have the exact same specs.)
Add an extra 256GB to your Nintendo Switch 2 for just $21Buy now at Amazon Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | PC World - 2 Apr (PC World)If you’re playing audio on a desktop replacement laptop with a six-speaker-strong configuration, something like the Razer Blade 18 with its four woofers, two tweeters, and additional three smart amps, then you’re probably not going to be lacking volume in your media.
Then again, if you’re rocking a four-, or two-speaker system in a light and thin laptop, then even when Windows’ volume setting is 100 percent, your audio is likely to still be underwhelming at times. In that case you’re going to want to tune your volume past Windows’ 100 percent volume limit.
Some guides recommend using Windows Volume Mixer to do this, but Windows Volume Mixer generally won’t give you the option to surpass 100 percent for each app or program. Changing the registry isn’t advisable either since it can cause system instability. You’re better off using the following methods…
What to do…
Method 1: Use VLC media player
VLC media player is available for download on the Microsoft store so it’s readily available. Just a disclaimer: You may not want to raise the volume to VLC’s maximum 300 percent volume since this could damage your speakers. Here’s what to do:
First download and install the VLC app from the Microsoft store.
Select Tools from the top menu, then Preferences. Below Show Settings toggle All.
From the left select Main Interfaces, then Qt. Scroll down on the right until you see the category Maximum Volume displayed. In the box, type the value of the volume setting above 100 percent you want. Now close the tab to save your new setting.
Dominic Bayley / Foundry
Method 2: Install a Chrome extension
If it’s just a Chrome webpage you want to raise your volume in, then Volume Master will do the trick. This will work in YouTube too, so you can use it to view the channels you subscribe to.
Search for Volume Master in the Chrome Web Store. Then click Add to Chrome to make it available in Chrome.
Now click the Extension button (which looks like a puzzle piece) at the top of your screen to open the extension. Choose the tab for the media that you want to raise the volume in.
Use the slider to boost the volume by a value up to 600 percent.
Volume Master extension works in the Chrome browser.
Dominic Bayley / Foundry
Method 3: Via an Equalizer tool
Most equalizer apps have to be purchased, but Equalizer APO, is open source so it’s free to download. It’s not officially supported on Windows 11, but the Windows 10 version still works for most users. Here’s how best to use it.
First download Equalizer APO.
Extract the zip file and launch the installer. Follow the installation instructions until you see the window named Configurator.
Select the playback device that you want the Equalizer APO device to use. This will be either your speakers or headphones.
Once you’ve finished the installation restart your PC.
Back in Windows open File Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\Equalizer APO\ and open the config folder. Open config.txt with the Notepad app and change the value displayed in dB. You can change this to a maximum 20dB, but you’ll probably find 10- or 15dB is an acceptable volume boost.
Changing the preamp value in Equalizer APO’s config.txt.
Dominic Bayley / Foundry
Tip: For best results with each of these methods you’ll want to raise the volume in increments at first to find the maximum volume you can achieve before the sound gets distorted. Remember to listen to your media at safe levels that won’t damage your hearing or your device’s speakers.
Further reading: Best budget computer speakers 2025: Solid PC audio for $100 or less Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | PC World - 2 Apr (PC World)There are so many benefits to a docking station for your laptop, especially if you feel like your laptop doesn’t have enough ports for all your peripherals and accessories. And if you don’t have one, today’s your lucky day because this super-fast Plugable Thunderbolt 4 dock is just $75 on Amazon right now. That’s a whopping 42% off!
A Thunderbolt 4 port looks like a USB-C port, but it’s a magical all-in-solution that can connect everything from high-resolution displays and ultra-fast storage drives to power chargers, all through a single cable. And while Thunderbolt 4 ports have become increasingly popular on modern laptops, docks with such ports continue to be rather pricey.
That’s why this deal is so dang hot. Plugable’s 3-in-1 model turns a single Thunderbolt 4 port into three, allowing you to connect even more devices to your laptop while delivering 60W laptop charging through the hub. (You will, of course, need a laptop with at least one built-in Thunderbolt 4 to take full advantage of this. If you only have a regular USB-C port, this dock may not perform optimally.)
With this dock, you’ll be able to transfer files at 40Gbps and connect two 4K displays at 60Hz each (or one 8K display with a Windows device or two 6K@60Hz monitors with a MacBook). It also comes with a USB-C-to-HDMI-2.0 adapter, allowing you to hook up a 4K HDMI display through the dock despite it not having any HDMI ports.
If you have a Thunderbolt 4 laptop and wish you had more ports, it doesn’t get better than this. Grab Plugable’s 3-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 dock for just $75 on Amazon (was $130) and come out a winner.
Save 42% on this Thunderbolt 4 dock with HDMI adapter includedBuy now at Amazon Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | PC World - 2 Apr (PC World)In 2015, I saw the best demo that you’ll probably never see: the press-only demo of the Microsoft HoloLens.
This week, Microsoft celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 4, 2025, and at PCWorld we’ll be spending some time looking back on how it got here. But PCWorld also celebrated something else even more important: the life of our colleague, Gordon Mah Ung.
Gordon passed away from cancer last December, and over the weekend PCWorld staff both past and present gathered together to talk about what made Gordon special. For me, it was a time to reflect. My own career began about 30 years ago, about the same time that Gordon moved over from newspapering into technology journalism.
Now that he’s gone, it’s made me realize something our society struggles with; asking Gordon about his life would be a tacit acknowledgement that it was ending. It’s a shame. I wish I asked him what PCs, products, and demos made the biggest impact on him over his decades of covering technology in magazines and on the web. What stood the out strongest to a person who saw almost everything tech had to offer this century?
In honor of Gordon, and just in time for Microsoft’s 50th, I want to share the coolest tech demo I’ve ever seen: the closed-doors HoloLens hands-on that Microsoft showed off on Jan. 21, 2015.
Microsoft
The mother of all (Microsoft) demos
Microsoft doesn’t often invite journalists to its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and for me this was my first time stepping foot on its campus.
In 1968, Douglas Engelbart gave what’s known as the “mother of all demos,” showing off what became the computer mouse, hyperlinking, and more. For Microsoft, that day was pretty close! Microsoft showed off Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, the HoloLens, and related apps and services, such as the Windows Xbox app. I was there for the news, but most importantly for the demos: how everything looked, felt and worked. And at the end of the presentation, there was the HoloLens.
Thurrott.com’s YouTube channel shows off what the journalists in the room saw:
Microsoft made a number of computers, tablets and phones available for us to try out Windows 10 and the new Windows Phone OS, and I remember being pretty impressed with Windows 10 and especially Cortana, a cheery, responsive “AI” who could answer questions and perform a number of tasks. Microsoft’s operating systems usually swung back and forth between a professional business focus (Windows 2000, for example) and excessively consumer-y, such as Windows 8. Windows 10 felt like it took some of the best elements of both worlds.
While my memory of that day is a little fuzzy, what I do recall is that the HoloLens wasn’t just available to try on. It was a curated experience, and required signing up for one of several groups. At a certain time, a small cohort of reporters was escorted downstairs into the basement to try out the HoloLens in a series of one-on-one demonstrations.
The most important thing for a HoloLens viewer was getting the inter-pupillary distance correctly measured. Looking the HoloLens was a bit like looking through a porthole, as the field of view was limited. Naturally, it was important to get that aligned correctly with our eyes. The demo HoloLens that the world saw that day was the slick, Daft Punk-inspired headset that eventually shipped, but we were strapped into a two-piece visor and NUC-like device, tethered by a cord.
This was it: Minecraft magic
I chose to highlight a virtual walk on Mars as the highlight of the HoloLens launch event, but what still sticks with me, years later, is the Minecraft (“Holo Builder”) demo.
We all know Minecraft. It’s a first-person game, where you walk about and, well, mine and craft weapons and tools and building materials. While the game is randomized, the interface isn’t. You’re just a blocky person with a sword or pickaxe, wandering about.
The HoloLens changed all that. I walked into a standard living room: sofa, coffee table, a couple of chairs, maybe a plant or two. The HoloLens turned them into the game.
This Microsoft concept art is as close as you’ll see to what I saw. I just remember it being less complex but much more vibrant.Microsoft
That blew my mind. I’d never thought of actual physical surfaces as a game board, even for someone who had thought that the “battle chess” holographic setup in Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon was pretty cool. The HoloLens allowed me a godlike view, walking around Minecraft plateaus on the couch — even allowing me to peer through “holes” in the coffee table into the fiery Underworld of the game. Of course, there was TNT — and that blew up, too. Could you flick Creepers into the abyss?
I don’t really recall if “I” as a player was represented, meaning that I’m not sure if the perspective allowed by the HoloLens really allowed a “game,” per se. It was a fantastic demo, certainly, but that’s all it ever was.
But that was part of what made the HoloLens (for the time) so cool; its ability to “scan” your surroundings and apply virtual reality to it. Microsoft did this with several HoloLens apps you likely never saw: a murder mystery that put “clues” in your vision, and a surprisingly fun version of the Conker platforming franchise that allowed you to basically send your character bouncing off desks and stairs.
When I had my own HoloLens I literally snuck into an office building and tried playing Conker in an empty room with a staircase and other furniture. Then some lady came out and threatened to call the cops on me, ending that little adventure. Little did she know how close she was to a piece of computing history.
The HoloLens would have been a great assistant
What sticks with me as the second best demo was the integration of Skype into the HoloLens. Microsoft asked us to rewire a light switch — a real one, with live current flowing through it. As someone who had almost spot-welded a socket wrench while changing a car battery, I had and still have a healthy respect for electricity.
What Microsoft had us do was connect to someone who knew what they were doing via Skype, allowing me to share what I was seeing. The remote person then visually highlighted what I needed to do and how to do it. Sure, it was child’s play for someone who knew what they were doing, but it validated all of the “remote assistance” business cases that Microsoft would promote throughout the life of the HoloLens and beyond.
Today, how-to YouTube videos have basically replaced this idea, unfortunately, and if you still don’t understand, a handyman or plumber is always on call for a substantial fee. But a decade ago, it seemed like if I could call a call center for assistance, why shouldn’t they be able to remotely help me via the HoloLens?
Objects in space may be cooler than they appear
One of the people I saw this past weekend was former PCWorld games guru Hayden Dingman, who wrote a superlative series of articles on gaming and the emerging VR space. He and I both loved Tilt Brush, the “painting in space” application that both Hayden and I originally saw in 2015.
Microsoft had its own take on Tilt Brush, known as Holo Studio, which allowed you to create 3D objects on the fly, basically allowing you to create them and then pin them various places in virtual space, if I remember correctly. Again, it lacked the emotional resonance that characterized Tilt Brush, and served more as an introduction to showing how the HoloLens could preserve objects in 3D space, even when you weren’t looking at them.
Looking back, I’m not really sure why I loved the final demo so much, a HoloLens excursions across the surface of Mars. To be fair, the HoloLens “painted” the ground, preserving the illusion that you were walking on another planet. But peering at virtual rocks and landmarks seems less momentous now than it did at the time.
(I still say — as I do every time I think about the HoloLens — that there’s still a fantastic opportunity to recreate Dream Park, the 2017 novel by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes where players LARP an augmented-reality game overlaid over real actors and objects.)
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair
A year later, I was in a hotel room in San Francisco, getting an exclusive look at the HoloLens days before Microsoft allowed other reporters to test it out. In 2019, I couldn’t help but bring it out again for a night of playing with it in a darkened office and a retro review.
What strikes me, of course, is that the HoloLens ultimately failed, probably doomed by the same lack of applications that ultimately led to the Windows Phone’s demise. Microsoft did produce a HoloLens 2, only to get rid of it, too. Windows Mixed Reality, the offshoot marketed at PC makers, bombed even harder. So did the metaverse. Alex Kipman, the creator of HoloLens, departed Microsoft after allegations of harassment. Ultimately, the HoloLens is the iconic product representing an entire generation of VR failure.
I’ve seen early versions of smartphones and computers and consumer electronics, and even prototypes that I agreed not to talk about. One of the only other products that left me dumbfounded was the ability to “pause” live TV during the launch of TiVo and ReplayTV. But really, that was simply because of the instant, transformative effect on culture. The iPhone? No, not even that.
For me, the single most mind-blowing tech demo I’ve ever experienced was the ability to peer into a coffee table, light a fuse, and launch skeletons into the air via a virtual block of TNT. I’d love to see something as cool as that yet again. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | PC World - 2 Apr (PC World)Want to talk with Copilot? If you do, Microsoft is testing an intuitive little tweak to allow you to do so.
On March 10, Microsoft launched a new shortcut that is rolling out as part of the Copilot app on Windows: a “long press” combination of Alt+SPACE as a press-to-talk shortcut to open the Copilot app. But who would remember that?
Now, Microsoft is testing a smarter alternative as part of the Windows Insider Beta Channel, launching a “press-to-talk” voice chat by holding down the Copilot key for two seconds instead. Of course, right? It’s a much more obvious way of interacting with Copilot, period. To end the conversation, all you need to do is press the Esc key or simply wait to end the conversation, which will turn off after several seconds.
You should see this roll out via an update to the Copilot app soon, via Copilot version 1.25033.139.0 and higher.
Long-press shortcuts aren’t actually used within Windows, so the Copilot shortcut would break new ground here. Some third-party software uses long-press shortcuts to trigger functions within Windows, and a right-click-and-hold might be considered a long-press command. But doing so with a keyboard? To my knowledge, that’s entirely new on Windows–it’s usually a function for mobile keyboards, instead.
It’s probably unlikely that too many people will want to actually chat with Copilot right now, based on what I was told was a lack of use with Cortana on Windows. But with conversational modes springing up within Copilot, Gemini, and more, it’s much more likely that users will have an ongoing conversation with Copilot. That’s what Microsoft is betting on, clearly, and the new long-press shortcut seems like a smart addition. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | Ars Technica - 2 Apr (Ars Technica)Model context protocol standardizes how AI uses data sources, supported by OpenAI and Anthropic. Read...Newslink ©2025 to Ars Technica |  |
|  | | PC World - 2 Apr (PC World)While laptops have their advantages, your home office workstation might be better off with a mini PC. It takes up far less space while packing way more power at any given price. Seriously, if you want performance on a budget, you can’t do better than a mini PC.
Especially when you find them on sale, like this Acemagic AM08 Pro for $399 on Amazon. Down from its usual $499, this thing is 20% off, making it a solid buy for what you get: an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX processor, a jaw-dropping 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage.
That’s a three-year-old processor, but it’s still going strong as it delivers game-changing performance in such a tiny package. And 32GB of RAM? That’s quite solid in 2025. Not to mention the RAM and SSD are both easy to access and user-upgradeable, so you can bump the system up to 64GB RAM and 2TB SSD on your own at some point down the road.
Note that the AM08 Pro is marketed as a “gaming mini PC,” but there’s no discrete graphics card here; instead, it’s equipped with AMD Radeon 680M integrated graphics. To be fair, that’s enough to run games on moderate settings with decent performance. (Just don’t expect to crank everything up to Ultra, you know?) It’s also powerful enough to run triple 4K displays via dual HDMI 2.0 and a USB-C video port.
This is an excellent machine for the price, so don’t miss out. Take advantage of this sweet deal and snag the Acemagic AM08 Pro for $399 on Amazon while you still can!
Save 20% on this triple 4K mini PC with fantastic specsBuy now at Amazon Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | PC World - 2 Apr (PC World)Microsoft has finally made all Copilot+ PCs—not just the Snapdragon ones—eligible for all of its AI-powered Copilot+ features. Well, almost.
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the Windows world is badly fragmented. Not only are users split between Windows 10 and Windows 11, but Windows 11 users aren’t even all on the same version. Now, over the past year, AI has added another wrinkle with Microsoft mainly developing its Copilot+ PC features for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X platform while neglecting AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 and Intel’s Core Ultra 200 series processors.
Fortunately, that’s changing. On Monday, Microsoft wrote in a blog post that PCs powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, Intel Core Ultra 200V, and Snapdragon X series processors are all eligible for “exclusive Copilot+ PC experiences like Live Captions, Cocreator, Restyle Image, and Image Creator.” The word “like” offers some wiggle room, since other AI-powered experiences—such as the ability to resize photos—is only available in the Photos app on PCs running on a Snapdragon chip.
Still, it’s a major step up for AMD and Intel. Microsoft and its partners launched Copilot+ PCs in May 2024, showing off all of its favored AI features on Snapdragon machines. Although Microsoft promised that it would soon bring those features to Copilot+ PCs powered by AMD and Intel, months passed… Microsoft then eventually released Windows Recall for Copilot+ Snapdragon PCs, then offered that feature to AMD and Intel-based Copilot+ PCs in December.
There are still exceptions, however. Monday’s blog post also mentioned Voice Access, an easier way to talk to your PC “using more descriptive and flexible language.” But nope. That feature is only for Copilot+ PCs with a Snapdragon chip, not for AMD or Intel PCs (which will receive Voice Access capabilities later this year).
“Some of these innovative experiences for Copilot+ PCs are available via the March 2025 Windows non-security preview update (which requires the November 2024 non-security preview update),” Microsoft wrote. “Over the next month, we will gradually roll out these features via the Windows controlled feature rollout (CFR) to consumers.”
If you own a Copilot+ PC with a qualifying AMD or Intel chip, the best way to get the new updates is to go to Settings > Windows Update and turn on “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available.” Either check frequently for the new update or just let it be pushed to your PC. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | BBCWorld - 2 Apr (BBCWorld)The research found a correlation between looking at a screen in bed and reporting insomnia and sleep loss. Read...Newslink ©2025 to BBCWorld |  |
|  | | PC World - 1 Apr (PC World)By now, you’ve heard of the U.S.’s decision to levy tariffs on imports—all goods made in China, as well as select materials worldwide, like steel and aluminum. At the time of this article’s publishing, taxes on products coming from Canada and Mexico also were likely to begin early April, with additional tariffs proposed for more materials and products worldwide.
I covered the details about these tariffs in a FAQ, as well as a set of highlights for a shorter way to get up to speed on the situation. I also created a breakout of sample cost increases so you could better see what actual purchases could look like.
But most news has focused on the immediate dollars-and-cents effect of these new taxes. What’s been talked about less are the other ways tariffs will impact the tech industry—consequences that could dampen or even drive back certain aspects that we currently take for granted. At best, we’ll see a temporary blow. At worst, we could feel this hit for years to come.
Harder to obtain
Technology has become more available to the masses over time. Long ago, personal computers were a rare luxury, found only in homes of enthusiasts or the well-to-do. But as popularity rose, devices and hardware became easier to get. People wanted to spend their money on fresh gear—and so supply became more plentiful.
Remember when EVGA made graphics cards? Yeah, they don’t any longer, after looking at the cost of that part of their business. Let’s hope the tariffs don’t cause other companies to make similar moves within tech.Brad Chacos / Foundry
But when prices go up, demand goes down. Companies already have an incentive to slow the rollout of new products due to the economic instability brought about by the tariffs. If you add on a weakened appetite from consumers for discretionary purchases, vendors have reason to pull back on the production. They may become slower to release successors to products or even a wider variety of products. In particular, smaller companies decide to pause or stop product lines.
Industry insiders expressed this very sentiment to me when discussing the tariffs and their effect. Without the ability to make accurate forecasts, businesses have to proceed with more caution. They’ll either produce less of their usual devices or hardware—or opt out of selling certain items altogether.
After years of ever-growing options for consumers, shrinking down to fewer choices will be a sad step backward.
Price stagnation (or even increases)
Intel’s Kaby Lake Core i7-7700X launched just a couple of months before AMD’s first-generation Ryzen CPUs, sporting a 4-core, 8-thread processor. By fall, its Coffee Lake Core i7-8700K successor had added two more cores and four more threads. Competition makes a difference.Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry
Innovation and competition help lower costs for technology. Manufacturing becomes more efficient, growing demand spreads production costs over a wider field, and/or the tech is succeeded by something even fresher.
But if tech gear becomes less varied and harder to get, those factors won’t be as dependable as an influence on price. How much you’ll pay for a laptop, phone, or piece of hardware will likely stick where it is—or go up. As my colleague Gordon Mah Ung loved to point out, Intel sold consumers 4-core, 8-thread CPUs for years, always at similar MSRPs. And when Team Blue launched its first 10-core processor, the suggested price was a staggering $1,723.
Fast forward a year, after AMD released its first generation of Ryzen chips, and Intel’s top consumer chip had inched up in core count, with the $359 Intel Core i7-8700K sporting 6 cores and 12 threads. Its closest rivals? The $329 Ryzen 7 1700 and $399 Ryzen 7 1700X, both of which sported 8 cores and 16 threads.
This history lesson shows that consumers get less value when fewer options exist. Companies can charge whatever they want when faced with less pressure to keep pushing the envelope.
Slower release of new products
Should early adopters become more reluctant to try out new gadgets, companies could stop trying novel new form factors, like this tri-fold smartphone.Luke Baker
If you’re a company facing economic uncertainty, how much would you want to invest in different products? Likewise, if you’re a consumer looking at devices with fewer or smaller upgrades that cost as much as the previous model, will you want to buy anything new?
It’s a bit of a standoff, and one that the tariffs could spark. For example, let’s say you’re used to buying a replacement phone every two years. But if the features don’t change dramatically, and prices remain high (especially for flagship models), perhaps you’ll stick to what you’ve already got in your pocket. Companies might then not push novel form factors as hard, like tri-fold phones and other variants.
Similarly, Nvidia and AMD could continue to delay their attention to budget gamers, instead choosing to focus on graphics cards that will bring in more cash. Sure, Intel is the lone holdout for the budget range, but its market share remains low, and its launches aren’t as regular. Budget gamers might then continue to hold out, biding their time with progressively lower graphics settings and frame rates. (But real talk, if your GTX 970 still does it for you, keep rocking that GPU until its well-deserved retirement.)
So while engineers will continue to announce newer protocols and standards (think Wi-Fi 7 or PCIe 7.0), the time to an actual launch may be much further in the future than we’re used to. And that pace change could feel like a screeching halt compared to the boom of the past couple of decades, depending on how big a slowdown is.
Unpredictable pricing
A close up of a circuit board. Copper is often used in circuit board traces.Michael Schwarzenberger / Pixabay
Until recent years, technology’s progress also often resulted in a predictable routine for prices, too. Current devices got cheaper, and the stuff that replaced them often stayed the same price or even lowered, thanks to improved manufacturing or higher demand.
Before the tariffs, that reliability in pricing trends started to waver due to factors like rising production costs. And now with these additional taxes dropped on top, we consumers may no longer be able to trust in steady pricing.
First, as companies shift manufacturing locations, their logistical costs will increase. But how much is still to be determined, based on resources (e.g., new staff hiring, training, etc.) and the ability for a business to absorb current tariff costs. Some larger corporations may take a hit in an effort to keep their part of the industry more stable, for example.
Additional tariffs could also cause sudden changes to MSRPs. Given how the current U.S. import tariffs were enacted, more could be announced very suddenly as well, with a notice of just a few days.
Graphics cards enthusiasts (and just PC gamers in general) know how painful supply shortages can be, especially when it comes to street prices.EVGA
The prospect of new tariffs looms large, too—in February, the U.S. executive branch proposed a 25 percent tariff on all semiconductors, with the intent to sharply raise the tax over time. More recently, a 25 percent tariff on copper was suggested. (You’ll find copper in circuit boards, wiring, and a lot more related to tech.) If these tariffs stack on top of the existing 20 percent on all Chinese-made goods, you could see a sharp rise in costs for products with multiple components affected by these additional taxes.
Another wrinkle: When I last spoke with industry insiders, multiple sources told me they were still learning exactly how the tariffs would be applied. So they themselves are scrambling to adjust and adapt.
Finally, if costs go up and availability decreases (as discussed above), you may have more trouble predicting actual retail prices. Street prices could go a bit wild, too. We can look at the GPU market for a glimpse into that chaotic, terrible universe: Few cards are available at the announced price, and any remaining stock is higher due to partner cards adding on extras. Any other cards are only available through resellers at huge markups.
Before the pandemic, you could easily shop for devices and hardware, with the expectation of regular sales or discounts. Now surplus budgeting may be a requirement whenever you’re preparing for a new purchase. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
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