Motorola priced their entire 2026 lineup out of relevance. I think they may be less insulated than Samsung and Apple but it's not looking good out there.
They're somewhat active over on r/nocontract if you ever want to ask them yourself but I hope so. Unfortunately devices sold via carrier in the US often cannot unlock the bootloader. I'm stuck with what I got on my unlocked TracFone moto stylus.
Smartphone market was getting saturated anyway. In Q1 2026 shipments decreased just by 3% so effect isn't big. I think demand would increase if manufacturers would innovate somewhere again, but the products offered have new software features and lack on interesting hardware innovations.
The key question facing a memory maker, then, is how to allocate its wafers between DDR, LPDDR, and HBM. Some percentage of wafer allocation is locked in through long-term agreements with major purchasers, like Apple or Dell; and some is sold on the spot market, to buyers who want flexibility or lack the scale for long-term agreement. So every quarter, the wafer allocation teams at Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron decide—based on prices, contracts, and their best guesses about the direction of future demand—how to distribute their wafers across the three categories.
For most of the history of the industry, this allocation was straightforward. In the late 2010s, margins were broadly similar for DDR, LPDDR, and HBM; what interested the memory makers most was volume, and wafer allocation basically tracked end-market demand. Phones were the single largest market for memory, so LPDDR got most of the wafers. DDR took most of the rest. And HBM was a niche product for high-performance computing customers, so it got only a small sliver.
AI cannot continue to grow at the levels that we’re seeing today. IMO the longest it will last will be 2 years but the insatiable desire for RAM and inference will wane soon and memory makers will return to what they were doing prior.
At the moment there’s strong backlog in memory like what we saw in chips during COVID when manufacturers requested 2x or more chips because they couldn’t get the supply they desired today which caused the issues we saw. Combine that with the Chinese manufacturers who are coming online and we should hopefully see some alleviation of supply and prices.
Inference demand will be bigger in future than it is now, since new applications become possible as models get better. I think it can continue growing for the next 10 years easily. Efficient models might mean that hardware won't have to keep expanding, but you also need to realize that silicon shrinking is almost dead so growth will be more horizontal and it will be physically bigger rather than a fixed-size chip that packs x more transistors each year.
To-Ga@reddit
At this point, AI is killing the cheap hardware.
kingwhocares@reddit
And electricity.
GruuMasterofMinions@reddit
And water ... no Nestle there is not about someone having water, but about being it even less.
Tasty-Traffic-680@reddit
Motorola priced their entire 2026 lineup out of relevance. I think they may be less insulated than Samsung and Apple but it's not looking good out there.
Katent1@reddit
There is hope, as grapheneos jumped wagons on motorola track so maybe more google less options will be there, once built for snapdragons and stuff?
Tasty-Traffic-680@reddit
They're somewhat active over on r/nocontract if you ever want to ask them yourself but I hope so. Unfortunately devices sold via carrier in the US often cannot unlock the bootloader. I'm stuck with what I got on my unlocked TracFone moto stylus.
FullOf_Bad_Ideas@reddit
Smartphone market was getting saturated anyway. In Q1 2026 shipments decreased just by 3% so effect isn't big. I think demand would increase if manufacturers would innovate somewhere again, but the products offered have new software features and lack on interesting hardware innovations.
itsaride@reddit (OP)
YourVelourFog@reddit
AI cannot continue to grow at the levels that we’re seeing today. IMO the longest it will last will be 2 years but the insatiable desire for RAM and inference will wane soon and memory makers will return to what they were doing prior.
At the moment there’s strong backlog in memory like what we saw in chips during COVID when manufacturers requested 2x or more chips because they couldn’t get the supply they desired today which caused the issues we saw. Combine that with the Chinese manufacturers who are coming online and we should hopefully see some alleviation of supply and prices.
FullOf_Bad_Ideas@reddit
Inference demand will be bigger in future than it is now, since new applications become possible as models get better. I think it can continue growing for the next 10 years easily. Efficient models might mean that hardware won't have to keep expanding, but you also need to realize that silicon shrinking is almost dead so growth will be more horizontal and it will be physically bigger rather than a fixed-size chip that packs x more transistors each year.
Negative_Settings@reddit
You forgot the part where all the ai haters will claim some sort of victory as if it was them that made the difference