Two good laptops under 20K: Samsung ATIV Book 2 NP270E4V-K03PH and the Acer Aspire V5-131-10072G50A

The modern family. You are the geek in the family. Your primarily too is your shiny new HTC One. Your gaming is done on your aging Google Nexus 7. Your father is happy is can finally get a decent upgrade to his old BlackBerry Bold, and is happy to be taking delivery of the new Q10 in a few days. He is asking you to see how it will integrate with his PlayBook. Your mom, she is on her  iPhone talking with another doctor, while examining an X-Ray of a patient on her Apple iPad Retina. Your younger sister is driving the dog crazy as she chases it around the house taking video. She is thrilled with the Optical Image Stabilization feature of the Nokia Lumia 920. This is the modern family. Four members, four smartphones, three tablets and old faithful. Than it happens.

Old faithful is your trusty old HP Compaq 6910b from 2007. It has been on duty for six years now, and all of a sudden, old faithful gives up the ghost. She shut down and won't start up anymore. Old faithful has not been too useful as of late. It sits on one table in the house rarely moving. But you were planning to use it to right your Term Paper later this year. Your sister uses it to do school research on Wikipedia. Your father uses it from time to time to prepare presentations. The family budget is prepared by your mother, in long spreadsheets using old faithful.

You spend a fair amount of money on old faithful back in the day. But with four unlimited data plans, and you looking to upgrade your tablet to Full HD and your sister wanting a tablet with a pressure sensitive stylus, well there is not much room in the budget for a new laptop. It is a bit neglected, but you still need it. 

Luckily, these days, you don't have to spend much to get decent hardware. There are some really nice choices at below 20K.

1. Samsung ATIV Book 2 NP270E4V-K03PH (Php15,999 to Php18,999)

Samsung has recently rebranded its Windows devices under the ATIV brand. Not particularly catchy if you ask me. Still, they make decent hardware and you can pick up a entry level Samsung ATIV Book 2 for just Php15,999.

This 14-inch laptop is not spectacular, but it will get basic tasks done with a Intel Dual Core B847 processor and 2 GB of RAM. It has all the necessary connectivity options with WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI out and USB 3.0. It even comes with a optical drive. At about 4.5 pounds, it is reasonably portable and has a six cell battery 

At Php15,999 it does not have Windows. But your family uses four different operating systems. Might be time to give Ubuntu or Linux Mint a try. If you want a Windows version, it comes with Windows 8 for just Php18,999.

2. Acer Aspire V5-131-10072G50A

If you are looking for something more portable, and can give up the optical drive, the Acer Aspire V5-131 is a nice choice. It has similar specifications to the entry Samsung ATIV Book 2 but its comes with a 11.6-inch display instead and is powered by Intel Celeron 1007u processor. The smaller size brings the wright down to just over 3 pounds. This will cost you all of Php18,900 with a Windows 8 license.