I asked companies for prices of their new tech at Computex 2025 — but they're too tariff-ied to tell me
This year, however, companies have been a little more coy about these things. Either they've waited to tell us all in person at briefings, saying that they 'intend' to launch at X price, or they sent over press releases with no $ information whatsoever.
And that intrigued me, so I asked a bunch of company reps why that's the case and the reason is both quite simple but also kinda complex. Let me explain.
It's no secret that 'Liberation Day' on April 2 has caused some uncertainty — a list of 'reciprocal tariffs' put a lot of company stocks in free fall for a while.
Granted it's been lessened slightly after a 90-day pause on said tariffs, but the speed of which this story develops is putting companies firmly in the 'wait and see' category.
'With where we are now, I'd expect a lot of us to be waiting for the pause to end,' one rep (who wished to remain anonymous) told me. 'When that happens, we'll know for sure whether the tariffs are here to stay and plan accordingly — both in the way we manufacture these and how we price them.'
You see, most of the tech you see on the Computex floor is a culmination of an international effort, with elements coming together via manufacturing from a number of countries. And that makes pricing them a minefield, which a lot of companies fell for when announcing prices at CES 2025.
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A great example is the Asus Zenbook A14. I was fully ready to give it a high score based on that promised $899 price tag, as it has everything going for it to take on the M4 MacBook Air. But that price never materialized, and at the higher $1,099 cost, it just can't hang with one of the best laptops you can buy.
That's not to say we're all going down a road of rising prices here. There's a chance it could go in a more positive direction. The purpose of the tariffs, according to President Trump, is to re-open trading negotiations, and Taiwan was one of the first to respond in rounds of 'substantive' tariff talks with the U.S.
Dropping trade barriers with the home of advanced silicon production would be a significantly positive step forward, and as both sides continue to talk "with a view to actively seeking consensus and exploring further steps,' that's due for some cautious optimism.
Taking a step back, you start to see some of the moves being made to try and navigate this global uncertainty.
Whether it's Nvidia opening a new office in Taipei to sit on the fence between moving manufacturing to the U.S. and staying close to the huge silicon industry here in Taiwan, or other companies purely testing the water with products without announcing a firm launch date or price.
These are symptomatic of a larger worry on how that minimum 10% tax will affect the tech industry and its supply chain. I'm not going to say one way or the other, as when I do, something else changes, be it the U.S. Government's mind on the situation or some kind of deal to nullify them.
So all I'll say now is that we're kind of heading into an unknown, and after promising prices at CES only to have them retconned because of this situation, it's understandable that nobody wants to talk dollars and cents.
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