Nothing cancels CMF Phone Pro 2 successor due to rising RAM costs

The skyrocketing price of RAM has found another victim: budget smartphones. Akis Evangelidis, co-founder of Nothing Company, recently moved to x To announce that there will be no successor to the previous year’s popular cmf phone 2 proA credible iPhone competitor that launched for just $279 and won praise in the tech world for its design and budget-friendly pricing.

Nor was Evangelidis shy about naming the problem: “We were working on a successor, but with memory prices where they are now, we can’t make a phone that feels like a real step up for CMF at a price that makes sense.”

If you are completely unaware of what he is referring to, see This series of charts from PCPartPickerDetails of the increase in RAM costs over the last 18 months. Two standout examples: A basic 2x8GB configuration of DDR4 RAM sold for around $50 in January 2025 and now sells for over $150 in June of 2026, while a much faster 2x16GB configuration of DDR5 RAM sold for less than $100 in January 2025 and is worth close to $500 today!

mashable light speed

And while RAM is the most talked about culprit behind price increases, the price of solid-state storage (SSD) used in mobile phones, high-end gaming computers and consoles has also increased dramatically, currently priced at 20 times Equivalent hard disk drive (HDD).

The driver of these price increases is the AI ​​revolution currently underway across the tech sector, as deep-pocketed companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) are projected to spend approximately $700-$900 billion per year on AI-related infrastructure, rising to $1.6 trillion in 2031. According to Goldman Sachs report.

Unfortunately, because chip makers and RAM suppliers are severely limited in their production capacity, this new demand has created a bidding war, in which budget smartphone buyers and trillion-dollar tech companies are competing for the same limited supply of material. The result, at least in the near term, will be not only the elimination of budget smartphones like the CMF Phone 2 Pro, but also inevitable price increases for computing-heavy devices like smartphones, tablets, and personal computers that are already quite expensive. Apple’s outgoing CEO Tim Cook said that these developments “Mandatory.”

What should a budget-savvy buyer do in 2026? The best solution for now might be to keep your old phone, tablet or computer for as long as possible.