Verdict
The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is a solid translatable Chromebook . It offer nice performance for the price , as well as some near stamp battery living in a chassis that not only looks great but is sturdy , too . Its port wine selection is a piffling ungenerous though , and this is n’t the lightest of laptop .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Acer Chromebook Spin series of laptops is one that ’s impressed me an abominable flock over the last couple of years , and it ’s back again with another option which , on the face of it , should continue to wow the crowds .
May I present to you the Acer Chromebook Spin 514 – a slightly larger - screened convertible Chromebook , complete with an 11th gen Intel Core i3 central processor , 8 GB RAM , a 128 GB SSD and a self-coloured 14 - inch FHD IPS touchscreen display .
It comes in at £ 499 , which position it in the mid - range of Chromebooks , and for the price , looks to be skilful on paper . After spending a few weeks with this laptop , here are my thought .
Design
As is in - retention with some of Acer ’s other Chromebook try I ’ve look at in the past , the Acer Chromebook Spin 514 looks and feels spectacular . Its light silver aluminium chassis does n’t sense hollow , and there ’s an excellent smooth finish to the Spin 514 that makes it palpate a lot more expensive than the itemization price would indicate .
A weight of 1.37 kilogram think that this is more of a grave twist compared to some other 14 - inch laptop computer I ’ve used in the yesteryear , but it ’s still more than portable enough to chuck into a bag and carry around to where you need to go .
The fact this is such a portable laptop computer serve out the fact the Spin 514 is a convertible laptop , meaning you could flip its display all the way around so it ’s face up on the desk , like a pill does . This name it a particularly ready to hand gimmick if you ’re someone who need the restroom of a tablet , but you also want to keep the full scale pattern agent of a laptop entire , without going for a 2 - in-1 style twist .
The port option is where things plough a little bit weak , unfortunately . Acer has provided the sum total of twoUSB - Cports , one of which is used for charging , as well as a full - size HDMI out , a earphone jack and a unique USB - A. It would have been nice to see an extra USB - A , especially given that a lot of devices still use the connection , admit all the international voiceless drives I use .
On the other bridge player , the keyboard on the Spin 514 is excellent . It is more of a compact 65 % layout all over with arrow keys and a quarrel of mapping , but you get all the samara you take for a Clarence Day ’s oeuvre . There ’s some square travelling and dear tactility with the Spin 514 ’s keyboard , and it ’s by no mean value mushy , as some cheaper laptops tend to feature . It is also a backlit keyboard , which makes this useful for after dark working , but the backlight insurance coverage underneath the keys is patchy at well . I ’d stick to using the Spin 514 in the daytime , if I were you .
The trackpad here is of a good sizing , and offer stack of space for your functions . The release feel good too , with no real compressibility . My only issue is that the Gorilla Glass trackpad can experience a piddling too smooth at time , leave finger motility to seem a little flighty .
Display
Acer has , like with a fate of other laptop at this price , sprung no surprise regarding the display on the Chromebook Spin 514 . It features a 14 - inch FHD IPS panel which proved to be a great choice for general Clarence Day - to - day workings and restful .
A 1920×1080 solvent secure images are well represented , and 14 inches of screen real estate is perhaps the ideal well-chosen medium between small , more heavyset laptop , and larger screen single that wo n’t be as portable . A quoted brightness of 300 nit or so is pretty good too , and meet our general criterion for what make a decent laptop computer showing .
Colours here are generally pretty accurate , and in reckon some episode of The Grand Tour while I was n’t work , I was generally impressed with how images looked . The 16:9 view ratio on offer is pretty stock , and it would have been nice to see a more modernistic 16:10 proportion to reserve for more erect workspace .
But it ’s voiceless to complain much about this screen considering the price , with higher resolutions and more telling screen applied science ( such as OLED and Mini LED ) generally reserved for far more expensive system .
Performance
The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is not the most powerful laptop in the world , carry in a dual - core Intel Core i3 - 1110G4 . But regard what it ’s designed for , I ’ve got no qualms about this laptop computer ’s performance .
The results it achieved in our bench mark tests are specially challenging , with scores in multi - core performance only a modest amount better than single marrow . When equate with similarly priced Windows automobile , it matches well in the single magnetic core performance , but achieves score that are half or a third of the direction in the multi - core areas . Such is the way that the Spin 514 has a dual core C.P.U. , where others are either packing four or six .
With that being say though , in the real world , the Spin 514 proved nippy enough for the light demands of ChromeOS . The 8 GB of RAM it packs in is more than enough for opening a shedload of Chrome tabs without the Spin 514 faltering , although ChromeOS does n’t support a crop of apps as Windows can .
The 128 GB SSD here grant you a decent amount of space for installing apps and local files . It ’s nice that Chromebooks are start to offer more storage at this monetary value degree , whereas others I ’ve used have either 32 GB or 64 GB of eMMC storage , which is really nothing more than just an SD card .
Battery Life
In my barrage fire test , the Acer Chromebook Spin 514 hold out for just over 10 hours , meeting our target , and slay Acer ’s own quote bod admirably . This also means you ’ll be able to last a working twenty-four hour period before you need to reach for the charging lead .
This also extended into my real earth testing when using the Spin 514 as my primary workplace machine for a couple of weeks . I only had to charge the laptop up during the nighttime after I ’d finished working , as it had enough endurance for when I was flitting between Chrome tabs with Spotify , Google Docs , and a few other things exposed .
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Should you buy it?
:
If it ’s an particularly sharp and modern - looking Chromebook , this Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is an fantabulous selection with its atomic number 13 physique .
Unfortunately , if it ’s scores of ports you ’re looking for , the Spin 514 does n’t boast that many , so you may be better off looking elsewhere .
Final Thoughts
Acer ’s Spin Chromebooks have been some of my preferent Chromebooks I ’ve tested in the last few years , and this new Acer Chromebook Spin 514 variant is a decorous option for those want a convertible Chromebook . It provides an especially sleek - look chassis as well as a tactile keyboard and massive trackpad , alongside decent levels of great power and battery life too .
The display on whirl is comely , although it may not spring any surprises . Then again , it does n’t necessarily demand to , given the fact this is a Chromebook after all .
Where this Chromebook fall down is more on the fact its port survival is a act scrimpy – a 2nd USB - A would ’ve been nice , as would a 16:10 aspect ratio on the exhibit , and a expert keyboard backlight . But for £ 499 , this is a adequate selection if you want a Chromebook that also doubles as a pad of sort .
Trusted Score
How we test
Every laptop we refresh goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge fundamental thing admit anatomy tone , performance , screen tone and battery living .
These include formal synthetic benchmarks and scripted trial , plus a series of literal world checks .
FAQs
This modelling of the Acer Chromebook Spin 514 launched in the summer of 2022 .
Yes , this laptop computer does sport a touch screen .
