WATCH: Best Budget Laptops Under PHP 30K (2023)

Thanks for the video. I do appreciate CJ’s thorough explanation on why these laptops belong in this list. However, I do believe labeling this as “best budget laptops” is a bit inaccurate given the common trait all these laptops in this list share.

While I do like the variety of options (touchscreen, USB-C charging, upgradability etc.), they all sport the outdated Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor. That’s a dual-core processor which nobody should use in 2023 in my opinion. Background tasks like Windows Update or even something seemingly simple like a Steam update can tax all 4 threads and put a huge hit on multitasking performance.

There are newer sub-30k laptop options such as the Lenovo Ideapad 1 15AMN7 82VG00FEPH sporting a Ryzen 3 7320U . 4 cores 8 threads and better iGPU with a 1080p display and 512 GB SSD for 27k.

Even the MSI Modern 14 has a superior version. The C12M-620PH model costs Php 29,900 but has a 6-core / 8-thread i3-1215U which also has decent Intel Xe Graphics. That’s triple the cores and nearly double the L3 cache for the same 15W TDP.

There’s also the Acer Aspire 3 A315-510P-38RD which has an Intel Core i3-N305 (Php 26,850.00) which is also Alder Lake based and has 8 slow E-cores that can boost up to 3.8 GHz. Slightly slower single thread performance but Windows 11 will most definitely put those 8-cores to work when necessary.

Dual-core laptops might run fine out of the box but I can imagine after 1-2 years when newer Windows updates come out, these laptops will start to feel the burn.