Customer Reviews

Acer Aspire V5-132P 11.6-inch Touchscreen Laptop (Blue) - (Intel Celeron 1GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, WLAN, Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 8.1)

Acer Aspire V5-122P 11.6-inch Touchscreen Notebook (AMD A6-1450 1GHz, 6GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Windows 8)

I bought this for when I am travelling. It's perfect for web browsing and e-mail. I even use it for high res photo editing in Photoshop (CS3) and it handles it just fine.

The touch screen and keyboard are a joy to use. The screen is clear, bright and accurate.

Upgrading to Win 8.1 took ages but that's down to Microsoft server speeds and not the computer itself. The same applies to Windows updates. You just need a little patience. I just left it to download overnight. The only thing I don't like is the touchpad. It needs to be more clearly defined. I was always zooming in and out with the cursor hard to control. I'm much happier now I've bought a mouse.

I didn't buy this on Amazon. At the time of writing you can buy this exact same model/spec at the high street catalogue shop (starting with A) for �70 less. Shop around :)

To everyone buying this laptop, make sure you know what you are getting. The cheaper versions may seem like a bargain but they have the much slower and older C70 CPU. The higher price version (6GB RAM, 500GB HDD) has the new A6-1450 which is a quad-core CPU (The ones sold in PC World are the dual core version). I was deciding between this and the Asus S200E. The Asus has a more attractive design (aluminum case) but the Acer has a better screen and is cheaper.

Here are some benchmarks for the CPU's:

AMD C70: 621
AMD A6-1450: 1632
Intel i3-2365M: 1682 (Asus S200E)

I bought this for when I am traveling for web browsing and productivity (programming with Visual Studio). It handles both tasks fine.
For any other developers - if you need virtualization, the A6-1450 CPU supports it but it is disabled and not available in the BIOS. There is a way of enabling it by hacking the BIOS in Linux but you would probably be better off with another choice.

I have bought this laptop from high street catalog shop for 300�, I did upgrade it with 120GB SSD and I really love it. Its snappy and the touchscreen works great in Windows 8.1 modern UI and desktop likewise. I hardly ever use the touchpad. Browsing web with IE11 app for modern UI is a great experience, scrolling and pinch to zoom is fluid like on iPad if not better. Native netflix app works a treat and HD movies are all fluid and beautiful on its high quality IPS display. The plastic case is sturdy and the overall build quality is great. It is also easy to upgrade the HDD to SSD with video guides on youtube. Overall performance is on par with the lates intel Bay Trail processors with 3D graphics performance being some 50% better for this AMD APU. Only one slight disappointment could be the mediocre battery life ranging from 3-5 hours depending on your usage but that can be rectified with the purchase of exterlan battery with latches securely to the back of the bottom cover. Keyboard is very nice to type on and you will be up to your normal speed within few minutes. Key has definitive feedback and are nicely spaced. Small bonuses are nicely positioned controls for adjusting the volume and screen brightness accesible throught function key in combination with arrow / cursor keys. Windows 8 now really makes a sence with such a responsive and accurate touchscreen. It is total pleasure to use. I just wish that there is a version with backlit keyboard in UK like in US. Overall for �300 and after SSD upgrade this laptop is hard to beat for its value.

I have had the Acer Aspire V5-122P for a couple of days now and I am overally satisfied with what I got. I was very reluctant whether to buy it or not, reading so many comments which stated that it was a slow, buggy machine. However, this was not the case with the device I received - it was working perfectly fine out of the box.

GENERAL PERFORMANCE, CPU and RAM
I can say although the processor is AMD and runs at only 1.0 GHz it actually runs faster than the Intel Celeron 2.1 GHz dual core which I had on my old Compaq machine. Applications start fast enough and that applies for both the Windows 8 apps and the desktop software. Using Adobe Photoshop and Audition I have so far had satisfying results. The 6 gigs of RAM are more than enough for the average user, infact I have never had more than 45% RAM in use, even when I had launched quite a lot of applications. The machine works without producing almost any noise if you do not start up too much applications. You can still hear the fan but that is hardly a problem as it is very quiet. I have used it for like 10 hours straight and it did not get warm, except for a small part on the backside but it was hardly warm and did not bother me when using it on my lap.

DESIGN AND PORTABILITY
This is actually one of the reasons I bought the device (other than that I needed a replacement for my old laptop) - I especially liked the design. It is actually a bit heavier than expected - that is what I felt when I first took the Acer Aspire in my hands, but after a couple of days with it maybe I got used to it and now it feels quite liteweight (especially compared to my old 2.5 kg laptop). The built quality is excellent, the only annoying thing being the buttons of the touchpad, which feel somewhat lousy and produce a very unpleasant sound when touched - but I do not use them often because of the touch screen so it is not a big deal. Also, the device turned out to be very slim - even more than I expected it to be. That was a very pleasant surprise indeed.

START UP SPEED AND BATTERY LIFE
It takes about 12 seconds for the Acer Aspire V5 to boot to the lock screen if turned off and about 4 seconds to boot if it was put to sleep - surprising speed when considering the price of the product and the absence of SSD. If you need to restart the machine, though, be prepared for about 40-50 seconds of waiting time. I do not know why it takes so long to restart it - it would be faster to turn it off and then power it up again instead. The battery is nothing surprising and exceptional - it will last about 4 and 1/2 hours on maximum with the Wifi turned on and 2-3 apps running (like Chrome, Word and Skype, but not if you use them all the time). Although the battery drains somewhat fast (when compared to other models), it takes like forever to recharge it. My device needs to be plugged in for about 4 hours before the battery is fully charged.

CAM AND MIC
The built-in camera is just terrible. It is way too dark and the contrast is way too strong. I could not find how to adjust the settings for the camera in general and doing so in each separate application that has access to it is a big pain. The mic is not of exceptional quality but it gets the job done. However, since it is located on the same part of the laptop as the keyboard is, if you type something during a Skype call the other side will have a very unpleasant experience. But you have the touch keyboard as some sort of compensation.

MISCELLANEOUS
I have so far discovered some sort of a lag on websites such as Facebook and 9GAG (and probably other sites which have the infinite scrolling feature) - if you scroll with a USB mouse or the touchpad it gets somewhat slow and laggy but if you do so with the touchscreen it works just fine. I have no idea why. Other thing is the operating system - I had a trial of Windows 8.1 on my previous laptop just to try it out and get used to it before purchasing a device with Windows 8 and I must say that Windows 8 works a lot faster than the 8.1 version I had on my other device. That is actually one of the reasons why I will not be upgrading - who knows, it could actually make things worse and I do not want to give up on the 12 seconds boot up time. One last thing - the machine came preloaded with tons of bloatware and a strange error in the Windows Update thing. I got the error resolved and got rid of the software which I had no particular use for, but still I would prefer having a clean install of Windows without too much crap.

DELIVERY
I bought it directly from Amazon. Ordered it on Sunday afternoon and got it delivered on Wednesday, even though I chose the regular delivery option (as opposed to the one-day delivery) and even though it was an international delivery. That was the fastest and most painless delivery I have ever had in my life so far. The packaging was as good as always. Would buy some more electronics from Amazon in the future.

I chose this laptop for my husband's birthday in place of a tablet or a netbook because it has a much larger memory (6GB RAM) but is still light enough to be carried around easily. He finds the touch screen a little more sensitive than he expected but as he has had it for less than 1 month I am sure he will get used to it! Apart from this, he is very pleased with it. It is very quick and the battery life seems perfectly adequate. We would recommend this product to anyone. I also bought a Case Logic Laptop Sleeve Case for him to carry it around, which I would thoroughly recommend. (see separate review)

I wanted a very small laptop for travel so that I could check my email, do a bit of online browsing, and a few other things. This little gem is just about perfect. It's very lightweight, easy to set up, and does everything I need to do. The only downsides are that the battery fades very quickly (maybe 2 hours max of serious use) and also that it's a bit slow, though not slow enough to be a problem. When traveling and using wifi in hotels, public places, etc. the wifi connections available aren't exactly brilliant anyway, so it's not all down to the laptop. It's a handsome (love the soft metallic blue) little thing and I am happy with it overall.

i wanted something to replace my tablet, so that i had office facilities and a proper keyboard for uni work.

This laptop fits the bill perfectly. Yes it does not have the quickest of processors but for simple tasks such as browsing the web and using office it works just fine. It also downloads applications quickly.

Only negative was that it came with so much pre-installed content from acer and required a lot of windows updates before i could use it.

It performs at a faster rate than i thought it would and the touch screen works really well.

If you need something light and small for travelling i would highly recommend this laptop.

SLOOOOOOOOOW is a key word for it, 1 Ghz processor + 4gb RAM is very unbalanced system , so it's noticeably slower than my 6 year old 2Gzh + 4 Gb RAM laptop, as in ACER case that processor from early Middle ages simply can't keep those 4 Gb busy. But otherwise it is small and quit a nice budget laptop with good screen, what can coupe with undemanding tasks or occasionally also something more demanding if you have a patience . Just recommendation from me , go for option with more than 1Ghz processor, that 1 Ghz is really so not 2014, when even smartphones has more lively brains.

Purchased for my daughter's 12th birthday, we had high hopes for this machine and initially it seemed marvellous. Small, neat, light, great colour. She was over the moon. 1GHz processor was a little slow and we hadn't quite caught up with the fact that it didn't have a dvd drive due to the size but we were happy for the price we paid. Within the first 24 hours it started crashing and on one occasion crashed 6 times within an hour. Obviously a fault somewhere - a techie friend has suggested it was graphics card (it even took a full 24 hours and numerous attempts just to restore it to factory settings so that we could return it without personal info on it). However cannot fault Amazon's customer service who took it back and are refunding in full. My husband has an Acer machine which has always been fine but this was a bad experience so I doubt we will be buying a cheap Acer again.

I have had this little ultrathin laptop for a week now, and so far, it has been working like a dream.
Screen is beautiful and responsive and keyboard is surprisingly comfortable.
the laptop comes loaded with ACER bloatware which can easily be uninstalled.
The 5400 rpm is bit on the slow side but it will do fine if speed if not your top priority.
Since i am a speed freak, I have decided to swap the 500 GB HDD for a Samsung SSD 120GB.

Samsung EVO 840: Samsung 120GB Basic Solid State

The laptop now boots in 3 seconds and all programmes open in less than 2 seconds... that's 4-5 time faster than the std load times achieved with the stock HDD.

The laptop now runs windows 8.1 which works beautifully. Please note that you will need to download the latest ACER drivers to get the most of your machine. They can be found there:
[...]
Go to ultra thin book, Aspire and click on Aspire v5 122P. Select Windows 8.1 and make sure you download the driver updates for the devices installed on your laptop. (check on Device properties to check your hardware).