U.S.-based consumers should have one expectation for the future: your tech will be more expensive. The most obvious culprit is Trump’s tariffs, and already prices for TVs, wearables, PC gear, gaming devices, chargers and many more product categories demand more from your wallet than they did a month ago. Companies have made radical changes in their pricing structure without telling customers or even using the word “tariffs.” While big tech tries to keep in President Donald Trump’s good graces, the rest of the U.S. is going to pay for it—literally.
Some tech brands, such as Acer, have explicitly blamed tariffs for why they increased prices by 10% across the board for their products. Nintendo initially pulled preorders of its Switch 2 earlier this month, citing tariffs. After offering a new preorder date, the company told customers it had raised the price of multiple controllers and other accessories. There are many, many more examples of stealth price gouging.
This year’s slate of TVs, such as Sony’s Bravia 8 II, now cost $4,000 at 65 inches, when the previous A95L OLED display from 2023 went for $3,500 at launch. Samsung’s latest 8K TV, the QN990F, will sell for $6,500 at 75 inches. Last year’s QN900D sat at $6,300 for the same size. Neither company has issued a statement about the reason for the increased costs, but we all know why.
Even when they’re caught raising prices, few companies will use the “T” word out loud, whether that’s out of concern for how consumers may react or in an effort to not catch the ire of America’s capricious chief executive. On Tuesday, retail giant Amazon was caught in a political firestorm of its own design. Punchbowl News, citing a single anonymous source, suggested Amazon would display the tariff markup on each impacted product. That would be a big deal. CBS cited data from analytics software maker SmartScout that showed sellers as big as Anker—the maker of popular home gadgets and portable chargers—have raised prices an average of 30% since April 2, aka “Liberation Day.”
It would have been one of the few pro-consumer actions the site most known for trying to kill off the independent bookstores has taken since its inception. Unfortunately for buyers, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has a cushy relationship with Trump. After White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “this is a hostile and political act,” Amazon told Gizmodo the idea for “listing import changes on certain products” was only a consideration for Amazon’s Temu and Shein clone, Amazon Haul.
Both Amazon and Trump’s reaction to the controversy point to one simple fact: products are getting more expensive, and few are willing to say how and why. The Trump world can live in their imaginary bubble where companies don’t increase costs when faced with 145% tariffs from China, but companies themselves are hoping consumers won’t notice when prices are jacked up.
As compiled by YouTuber Cameron Dougherty, PC accessory maker Logitech increased costs on nearly half of all its most popular gear, like the MX Vertical ergonomic mouse and MX Keys S, whose prices both went up by $20. Its G915 X Lightspeed TKL gaming keyboard went from $200 to $230. Logitech did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Smaller brands and companies in more-niche hobbies have been more willing to talk about the impact of tariffs, but others have kept mum. MSI increased the cost of its gaming handhelds, the Claw 7 AI+ and Claw 8 AI+, by $100 to $900 and $1,000, respectively. I personally was in the middle of writing a review for the beastly MSI Titan 18 HX gaming laptop, only to learn that the computer company had increased the cost of its $5,000+ laptop by several hundred dollars. MSI did not respond to my queries about whether the price was due to tariffs. You would be lucky to buy an MSI product in the U.S. currently, and that’s a shame considering the handheld just received a performance boost through an update to Intel’s ARC 140V integrated GPU.
In some cases, prices have gone up by closer to 50%. OnePlus shocked fans of its wearables earlier this month when it took its OnePlus Watch 3 from the expected $330 all the way to $450. In a statement shared with Gizmodo, OnePlus marketing head Spenser Blank said the company had updated the pricing for the Watch 3 from $500 to $350. This change was due to “recent adjustments in our supply chain” that “have allowed us to pass some savings” to consumers. Customers who bought the wearable at the inflated price can contact the company to adjust the price, though OnePlus said it was reaching out to those customers to talk about the refund.
OnePlus is the exception, and still the price of its Watch 3 is higher than before. Companies may be waiting to learn if Trump eventually backs down from his trade war targeting every landmass on Earth, whether it’s occupied by fellow humans or waddling penguins. The damage has already been done. Companies are far less likely to decrease prices to rates before Trump introduced tariffs. Many tech companies, like Apple, have already started to reorganize supply chains, moving manufacturing to India and away from countries that were harder hit by Trump tariffs. That costs money, and if every company is raising prices in tandem, we can only expect today’s inflated costs to be our new normal.
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