is a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.
I was cautiously optimistic about Acer’s Chromebook Plus Spin 514 when I tested a preproduction model last month, but the final unit is here now and it sticks the landing. Well, mostly.
Acer’s latest convertible Chromebook has zippy performance and oodles of battery life, along with a good touchscreen with stylus support. But crappy speakers and no fingerprint sensor make its $700 price tougher to swallow, and prevents it from dethroning the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, our current favorite Chromebook.
Our review unit of the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 is the base $699 config. It has MediaTek’s Kompanio Ultra 910 processor (same as the recent Lenovo), 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of UFS storage. Its 14-inch 1920 x 1200 IPS touchscreen has a 120Hz refresh rate and reaches 300 nits of brightness. And it supports USI 2.0 styluses, though they’re sold separately and there’s nowhere on the laptop to stow them. Acer sells a $799.99 spec with 16GB of RAM and a 2880 x 1800 resolution display that’s slightly brighter at 340 nits, but that upcharge doesn’t really solve the Spin’s biggest downsides.
Component report card: Screen: C
Webcam: B
Mic: C
Keyboard: B
Touchpad: B
Port selection: B
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