Acer Aspire v5-122p-0869, may not be what I need!

Hey guys,

Just wanted to chat about a laptop I've had for a few weeks. I wasn't exactly looking for a new laptop, but my old Acer aspire One had a hdd failure, and in looking for a new Hdd for that one, I found this v5-122p-0869, and really enjoyed the 8.1 and touchscreen combo, so picked it up for about the price of a 500gb ssd. I have the a4-1250, 2 core version, and kinda wish I had picked up the 4 core version. My main usage is for school, research, stock research (lots of tabs/browsers) and multi screens from time to time. As its set up from the factory, it really lags behind after a few things are open. I'm looking at doing a Samsun EVO 840 ssd with a recovery of windows, hopefully I can eliminate a lot of the preinstalled apps, and I got a good deal on a crucial 8gb stick, which I think should work out ok, its the same 12800 ddr3 204 pin style that's currently installed. I'm also trying to find a wifi adapter with the greatest range possible, I'm in a large hotel-style living area when at work and my router is usually a ways from my room.

All in all, do you think the upgrades will speed it up enough to match my needs better? I noticed my ram is maxing out pretty routinely when I watch it while using a few common programs. I feel that this machine is slower than my old one, doesn't seem possible. I do like its size, touch screen, and battery life. But I'm thinking maybe an S7-391 or 392 would be a better option with their I5 processors. I was looking to see if an i5 3xxx or 4200u can be upgraded to an i7, but I don't know a lot about the new intel cpu scheme. I think the 13" screen and better specs might be a good fit, though expandability is still limited in that size notebook. I think I need a touchscreen though, If I switch. That is a great feature, it makes windows 8.1 more intuitive by far.

Nick

 

Looking at a few more, still thiking the S7 looks great, but what about this model? V5-573P-9899 ?
Mainly, I'm curious about some of the v5-573 models battery life ratings, from 4-5hrs up to 10.5hrs? Is this mostly due to processor speeds, or what do you guys think? It seems most of them have similar specs, screens, etc, but with different i5/i7 processors, maybe with higher tdp and more power hungry.
I think I do indeed need a bit more speed. Some of my homework programs simply take too long on this little guy.

 

This is the post you need to see for the Acer Aspire 122p.

Well I bought the Acer Aspire 122p and have used it long enough. In short, buy it if you like slow frustrating computers. First off I can't understand why they would make a relatively new model and sleek-looking computer and put a 1 ghz processor in it. You don't really feel any accelerated processing or notice offloading to GPU, speed or performance out of this as it claims to do.

I bought this because I needed a quick upgrade from the painfully UNGODLY slow Acer Aspire One d260 netbook. The 122p turned out to be only a slight improvement. Friends this is a do one thing at a time computer. If you want responsiveness you'll get it only when there is nothing open and nothing running. Even then the internet browsing is still slow and frustrating. You can't even get the mouse wheel scroll until the full page and all the ads are loaded, very irritating.

There is very little to no multitasking on this unit without diminishing performance greatly. For example I can only start one download with my download manager and the rest of the computer functions have to wait until it is finished. With me I do work on my website, such as maintenance and eBook writing. So I often need a few heavy programs open like Dreamweaver, Microsoft Word 2007, Filezilla FTP client, Outlook, a dictionary/thesaurus, photoshop, and a number of folder windows. This is all necessary but when this computer is in this state you can forget internet browsing. It will take literally minutes to navigate the internet and open pages. And when my mind is juggling all these tasks I need quick responsiveness to keep holding my thoughts. I have to literally take brief naps, take my hand off the mouse and lean back, leave the room and make a sandwich, or stare at the screen frustrated while I wait for an average page to load. Speaking of Microsoft word the 122p has the same problem as with the Aspire One netbook. If you have a word document open with pictures in it and you want to quickly scroll through and spot check your documents it hangs and catches as it goes past the pictures. P.S. The processor toplines on the CPU graph frequently when multitasking.

Not only this, but this computer isn't even powerful enough to use google and youtube's search suggestions while you type. You have to peck type really slow or letters will get omitted. It is extremely angering especially if your a fast typer. I had to download google toolbar and turn off the search suggestions as I type. Facebook messenger typing lags a lot also. Youtube videos are sometimes catching and sticking and loads slowly.

By the way I went ahead and upgraded the RAM to the max hoping in the back of my mind it would make a difference but knowing it wouldn't. The RAM is not the problem it's the slow processor. Upgrading RAM only helps if it is being maxed out and you're getting messages saying your running out of memory as with the Acer Aspire Netbook 1gb factory memory.

There is no overclocking on this model and I mean no! Believe me. I've googled for days looking for alternatives. There is only two things you can do. 1. Go into the windows power settings and set it to high performance. 2. Download actual booster and use its set processor priority automatically to foreground process. That's just about it. And you will still get acute performance lags.

I never believe or carryout any suggestions from people who say to speed up your computer by turning off all the graphics settings and set windows to classic, or stop this service or stop that service. I don't see the point. I am not going to strip a new computer down just for it to work like it should. It is like a waist. So the moral is just buy a fast computer to begin with. After using this computer, from now on I will not purchase a computer with even a hz less than 2 gigahertz processing power. I've got my sights on the Acer Aspire 571.

The touchpad is klunky and rattles as your finger moves around on it because the lower end is not anchored to the casing. I had to superglue it still. I prefer the touchpads with the separate buttons not one big button/touchpad combo. Sometimes I need the cursor to stay in one place while I continue to tap the select button. But if you use this as your clicking down the touchpad as a button the cursor jumps around a little sometimes losing it's delicate position.

Windows 8

Microsoft is one checkbox away from making Windows 8 successful. The checkbox that should be in personalization that allows you to choose between Metro interface and the previous Aero translucent glass theme. The flat dull metro windows on Windows 8 looks like old 8 bit Atari graphics. It is a drastic downgrade from the Windows 7 Aero theme. People including myself are saying they will not upgrade their OS until they bring back the Aero theme. Windows 7 Ultimate is now the best OS, not Windows 8. In windows 7 they give you the choice in personalization to use the classic windows theme, a major scale back option if you want it. That is all Microsoft has to do to sell W8, give us the options to use Aero theme and classic and I would use W8. But with the 122p Microsoft, probably in an annoying attempt to force us to use Windows 8, didn't supply any drivers for Windows 7 for this model. The Windows 8 drivers work on W7 but there are a few glitches i.e. cannot adjust the screen brightness slider. It is stuck in one place and there is only one brightness setting. And the screen is blank after downgrading. Just push Fn+arrow left, the brightness controls, buttons to turn it on. The SD card slot is faulty, the message says 'cannot read from source disk'. The SD card is fine because it works on the Aspire One. Also the Card reader slot sucks because it doesn't click into place with the card fully inside the housing. It sticks out easily yanked with no secure hold.

I would not suggest buying this computer for any reason

 

All of this is because of new fashion of notebook manufacturers - ultra-mega-super-tiny-portable notebooks. Which can not be upgraded, modified or else. Only heatsink, HDD or SSD (not always) and some peripherals can be replaced. Yes, if we are speaking about life lasting when laptop is working on the battery - these ultra-mega-super-tiny-portable notebooks can live for up to 8 hrs. But, if you need just a little bit more performance than internet browsing demands, than you want to crush this peace of plastic with wife`s kitchen hammer or axe - because they are slow and weak. But fashionable, yes.

 

I can easily deal with short battery life or longer than normal startup times in exchange for faster and n=more responsive performance. But as you've pointed out there's nothing that can be done for the v5 122p to speed it up. Unfortunately.