The Windows Killer? Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 Review

Chromebooks just got a whole lot more interesting. When Acer offered to send us their newest Chromebook Plus Spin 514, we didn’t think much of it; just another Chrome OS work machine, right?

Wrong. This device is packing a chip that matches or beats even the newest Windows chips in efficiency without sacrificing performance. It flips nearly 360 degrees and has a touch display. And the best part? it costs just $799 for the maximum spec. So surely there’s some kind of issue, something that Acer has cheaped out on, right? 

To investigate exactly how it’s like to daily-drive a high-end Chromebook, I used it over the last 2 weeks, as well as for writing this review. And spoilers: There is a hidden problem that can only be revealed under sunlight.

Performance and Specs

The most exciting aspect of the new Acer Spin 514 has got to be the Mediatek Kompanio Ultra 910 processor. In case you didn’t know, it’s basically just a desktop variant of the Mediatek Dimensity 9400 chip found in high-end Android devices. It’s the most powerful ARM chipset ever put into a Chromebook by a long shot. So don’t confuse this Acer Spin with an ancient, slow Intel Celeron powered Chromebook.

There are 2 models of the Spin 514; one with 12GB of RAM and one with 16GB. Both have 256 GB of UFS storage. But make sure you know what you’re getting; the 12GB model is $100 cheaper, but has a worse webcam and a dimmer and less sharp display. 

Since ChromeOS is incredibly optimised, the multitasking performance with the fast processor and enough RAM is even beyond what you find on many high-end Windows laptops. This Acer Chromebook still stays responsive while outputting a display signal to an external 1440p monitor, updating 2 games at the same time while running 3 Google Chrome windows and libreoffice editing an 800 page PDF. And it’s doing all of that while the fans are barely spinning and inaudible. This is the kind of efficiency you usually only see in Apple’s M-series MacBooks.

So of course we had to throw this Acer into some benchmarks. In Geekbench 6’s CPU test, the Acer Spin is 11% faster than the Snapdragon X Elite in the Microsoft Surface Pro 11 in single-core speeds. The Surface is 65% faster in Multi-Core since it has more cores though. Versus the Acer Swift 14 AI with the Intel Ultra 7 258V, the Intel chip is just 5% faster in single-core. 

The Acer Spin is 400% faster in CPU single-core versus the Acer Chromebook Tab 311 that we reviewed recently, for reference.

Now we come to GPU benchmarks using 3DMark’s Wildlife Extreme test. Here, the Surface Pro 11 with the Snapdragon X Elite actually pulls ahead by 13%. But the Intel, Mediatek and Snapdragon chips are all very close to each other in terms of GPU performance. 

Gaming Performance

A quick note about gaming: You probably want to just get a Windows laptop if you’re interested in playing any PC games over Steam. ChromeOS lets you install most Android games, but many of them won’t have keyboard and mouse controls, and native Steam support doesn’t exist.

We installed Genshin Impact to get a feel for the theoretical gaming performance, and it’s good. With the highest possible settings and motion blur off, Genshin Impact runs at a smooth, constant 60FPS and looks great. You can try to bind the touch controls to keyboard keys, but that doesn’t work very well, and we ended up just playing using the display in tablet mode. 

Roblox is one of the few games in the Google Play Store that has proper keyboard controls. In the Polish Driving Simulator minigame, the Acer Spin produces a perfect 60FPS at max graphics settings, and the laptop fan keeps it cool. 

Display Specs and Impression

The Acer Spin 514 packs a formidable 14-inch 2880×1800 resolution touch display. It’s sharp enough that you won’t see individual pixels. The refresh rate is 60Hz, which is plenty in our opinion. 

Since this is an IPS panel and not an OLED, the contrast and black levels aren’t as impressive as on more premium laptops, but it’s vibrant.

Our main complaint about the display is the 340 nits of peak brightness. In a bright office, that’s barely enough to work comfortably, and you’ll struggle to see anything if there’s some sunshine hitting your display throughout the day. You can also forget about working outdoors at the cafe on a sunny morning. Also, although Acer lists it as a “matte” display, we still find it a little bit too reflective. 

Besides those downsides, the display is really good. It’s especially nice to rotate the laptop into “tent” mode so you only see the display, and watch a movie or series like that. 

Speakers

Left and right of the keyboard, there are 2 opposing front-facing speaker grills that suggest audio quality beyond your average Chromebook. But behind that facade are 2 pretty unimpressive stereo speakers. They get loud enough to somewhat fill a smaller space, but the sound is just not it. The bass is nearly entirely missing, and voices sound shouty and unpleasant. You might get by in a video call, but they’re not great for much else. 

Battery Life

Acer claims that the Spin 514 can hit 17 hours of battery life when browsing. The battery capacity is 69Wh, which is actually quite a lot for a 14’’ laptop, so it’s not a wild claim. The peak charging speed is a standard 65 Watts.

We run an HD YouTube video in a loop with the screen at full brightness to test battery life. Here, the Acer Spin 514 manages 11 hours before dying. That’s a fine result, but not a record score. The Acer Swift 14 AI lasts an hour longer despite having a smaller battery and brighter display, and of course Windows 11, and the Surface Pro 11 with the Snapdragon Chip also lasts 25 Minutes longer. It’s also nowhere close to Acer’s 17 hours claim. 

Still, we found that the battery life is good no matter if you’re doing something simple like streaming a YouTube video or multitasking with many apps open. You can nearly always get a full workday, if not two, of battery off a single full charge. 

Design and Build

The build of the Chromebook Spin 514 is quite nice for its price class. The outside is entirely made of a matte silver aluminium, and there’s a small, chrome Acer logo on the back. The design is simple but appealing. It’s not the lightest laptop at 1.36KG, but that isn’t an issue as long as you’re not holding it like a tablet for too long. 

Of course, being a 2-in-1 device, the display rotates all the way from a laptop form factor to “tent” mode, and you can fully fold the laptop into a tablet form and operate it using the touchscreen. The hinge feels sturdy and durable, and the display barely wobbles when typing. Unfortunately you can’t open the lid with just one hand. This isn’t anything new, but it’s rare to find a premium 2-in-1 device that costs under $1,000. 

Open up the laptop and you’re greeted by a display with relatively thin bezels, and a silver keyboard in the same colour as the chassis. The keyboard cover material is a softer plastic, which isn’t the most luxurious but still feels great. On the right there’s the fingerprint reader for biometric unlock. 

Moving on to the sides, you have an okay port selection. On the right you have 2 USB type A ports with USB 3.2 Gen 1 speeds and a kensington lock. The left side features 2 USB-C ports with USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds. You can use those to output a display signal. Next to the USB-C ports is a 3.5mm audio jack for wired headphones. 

Since the laptop charges with one of the USB-C ports, it would have been nice to have one on each side for flexibility. Or alternatively just a few more ports like a dedicated HDMI port or Micro-SD slot.

Acer claims to have engineered this Chromebook to the MIL-STD-810H durability standards. And to be fair, the laptop really seems quite durable. On my way to work on a cold Berlin morning, the smooth ice on the sidewalk led me to fall on my back, with all the force landing on my backpack with the Acer laptop in it. The device came out scarred, but only optically; everything still works like intended despite taking the blow. 

Keyboard and Trackpad 

The input devices that Acer has put into the Spin 514 aren’t bad at all. The keyboard keys have a good amount of travel, they feel nice and responsive. I do find that I tend to make more mistakes typing on this keyboard than usual since the keys require just a little bit more force to register than you’d expect. But that’s something I got used to fairly quickly. 

The F keys are also function keys with various useful shortcuts like reloading a page or return, as well as your usual brightness and volume control. On the right side, there’s no Numpad, which is understandable given the 14’’ size. Our only complaint is that the up and down arrow keys could be a bit bigger. 

The keyboard is also backlit, but you’ll hardly notice the light unless you’re typing in the dark. That’s mostly because the keyboard itself is silver, so there’s not much contrast between the keys and the light. 

Underneath the keyboard is a large, smooth glass trackpad. It’s not haptic-touch like most recent premium laptops, but it’s still a very good one. No complaints here. 

Stylus Performance

Since the Spin 514’s display supports every USI 2.0 stylus, there’s hundreds of options to choose from if you don’t order Acer’s own stylus. In our testing with one from HP, the stylus input works very well considering the form factor. If you flip the device into tablet mode, you can take handwritten notes with good accuracy. We tested the stylus performance in OneNote, Notewise as well as the preinstalled Cursive app. There’s very little lag and the pressure sensitivity works properly in all apps. 

I would still rather use a tablet for notetaking though; the Chromebook is a bit too heavy and bulky for that. 

A better use case of the stylus and touchscreen is to annotate or sign a PDF file. Or otherwise to use as a laserpointer when sharing the screen during a presentation. In any case, it’s a nice tool to have at your fingertips. 

Camera and Microphone

There’s a 5MP webcam on the very top of the display. Using that, you can record videos in 1440p, or take phones with 1200p resolution. The selfies are nothing special, probably sharp enough for identity verification when you buy a plane ticket. It’ll be fine for video calls too. And if you’re not using the camera and worry about Google’s spying eyes, you can simply cover the camera using the privacy shutter instead of duct tape. Practical. 

Again, the other, cheaper configuration of the Spin 514 has a weaker FHD webcam. We can’t review that model since we don’t have it on hand. 

The dual mic system is refreshingly high quality. Voices sound very clean in recordings and should work great in a Zoom or Teams call too. So all in all it’s a nice package for home-office.

Software: Chrome OS and Support Period

Whether you should buy the Acer Spin 514 is ultimately down to how you find ChromeOS. And I think many people have an overly negative view about Google’s operating system since they’ve only interacted with cheap, low-end Chromebooks. 

With the Spin 514, ChromeOS is fast, simple but more versatile than you’d think. Setting up the laptop barely takes 5 minutes. You type in your E-Mail Address, set a PIN and that’s it. The laptop also comes completely devoid of bloat; there’s no annoying popups from the manufacturer or McAfee. 

The biggest weakness is compatibility. Although you can download the majority of apps on the Google Play Store, not all of them are great to use with a keyboard and mouse – since they were designed for phones and tablets. The touchscreen can often be pretty handy because of that. Of course, you also have the full Chrome browser. I truly believe that 95% of people don’t need any more than that to get work done. 

For the 5% of work that you need dedicated apps for, you’ll need to get creative. ChromeOS lets you set up a Linux development environment. Through this, you can install Linux applications as well. Instead of using Microsoft Office, we installed the free LibreOffice suite. Instead of Photoshop, we installed Gimp. And surprisingly, the apps all run great. However, there’s no guarantee that you’ll find an alternative for every single Windows app you use. 

ChromeOS comes with a couple useful apps preinstalled. The Gallery app works similar to Apple’s Preview. You can open various file types and make simple edits to them. There’s also a preinstalled notes app called Cursive. These apps are basic, but good. 

Google promises 10 years of software updates and support for every recent Chromebook starting the day it’s released. That’s a very reasonable lifespan for the Chromebook since most people and organizations don’t keep a laptop for longer than 5 years anyways. Technically, you can get a longer lifespan out of a Windows laptop though. That might be an aspect to consider if you’re planning on keeping the device until it withers completely. 

Conclusion: Instant Buy? 

Acer’s Chromebook Plus Spin 514 is a very, very good deal in the current laptop market. Although the display is a bit dim, and the speakers are underwhelming, we think that it’s still a great value at a starting price of $699. 

We would definitely go for the $799 model mainly for the high-resolution display and better webcam, and it’s still a fair price for the mix of performance, battery efficiency and of course 360 degrees rotating design and touchscreen functionality. If you’re looking for a new laptop and are willing to give ChromeOS a shot, this Acer Spin is one of the best choices. 

If you’re still on the hunt for a laptop-tablet hybrid, we heavily recommend checking out our review of the Microsoft Surface Pro 12. It’s a full Windows tablet with a fully detachable keyboard and great stylus that often gets heavily discounted.