Acer Chromebook Spin 514 review: Solid performance at a premium price

Price at time of review

$699.99

Today’s lowest price: Acer Chromebook Spin 514

Need a fast Chromebook? The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 can rank high in searches. Powered by AMD’s 6-core Ryzen 5 5625C processor, the Spin 514 offers an alternative to the competitor’s Intel Core i5-1240P and offers a significant advantage over Chromebooks with Qualcomm or MediaTek hardware. However, budget laptop thrill seekers may find Windows alternatives more appealing.

Looking for other options? Check out our roundup of the best Chromebooks.

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: Specs and Features

The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is powered by AMD’s Ryzen 5 5625C, a 6-core, 12-thread processor and features AMD Radeon graphics with 7 graphics cores. This is powerful hardware for Chromebooks and the configuration tested represents a premium model. Acer sells some less powerful versions of the Spin 514 with Ryzen 3 processors.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5625C
• memory: 8GB LPDDR4X
• graphic/GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics
• screen: 1920 x 1080 IPS touchscreen
• depository: 128GB
• webcam: 720p
• connectivity: 2x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 (with Power Delivery and DisplayPort Alternate Mode), 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI, 3.5mm audio output
• networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
• biometric authentication: none
• battery capacity: 39 Watt-hours
• Size: 11.81 x 9.25 x 0.64 inches
• weight: 3.31 pounds
• Manufacturer’s suggested retail price: $699.99

Premium hardware comes at a premium price (for Chromebooks). The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 with AMD Ryzen 5 5625C is worth around $700 MSRP. AMD Ryzen 3 3250C with half the RAM and storage for under $400 at some online retailers.

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: Quality of design and build

IDG / Matthew Smith

The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 isn’t a fancy laptop, nor does it look unique. Without his Acer logo in chrome on the lid, most people wouldn’t have known who made it. It’s functional, sturdy, and has just the right amount of luxury. The chassis is mostly metal, the display has thin bezels, and the interior presents an elegant contrast of silver and black surfaces.

As its name suggests, the Chromebook Spin 514 includes a 360-degree hinge and touchscreen. The display can be folded and used as a tablet, and the keyboard can be used as a kickstand for the display. This versatility is appreciated and really useful. I often use my 2-in-1 as a tablet as I lean back in my chair to read the day’s headlines.

However, the Spin 514 is too big to replace a tablet in many situations. Weighing over 3 pounds and 0.64 inches thick, it’s about twice the size and weight of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and more than three times the weight of his iPad Air. It’s awkward to hold with one hand and clumsy to use as an e-reader while lying in bed.

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: keyboard and trackpad

IDG / Matthew Smith

Fortunately, the Chromebook Spin 514 is a better laptop than a tablet. In fact, the Spin 514 is a great laptop for basic everyday use.

keyboard credits. The Spin 514’s chassis offers plenty of room for a wide range of keyboard layouts with large, easy-to-place keys. The left Shift, Control, and Alt keys are larger, and the function keys (including support for the usual Chrome OS function line shortcuts) are larger than the Windows or Mac alternate keys.

The key feel is also excellent, with deep travel and a solid, tactile bottom action that ends with a light but satisfying click. Touch typists will quickly fly over the keyboard, while those who take the hunt-and-peck approach will quickly find the right keys. A backlit keyboard comes standard, making the keys easy to read even in dark rooms.

The touchpad is also excellent. It’s spacious, about 4.75 inches wide and 3.25 inches thick, with a smooth, low-friction surface. Multitouch gestures are easy to use (although Chrome OS has less support than Windows and MacOS). Touchpads are comfortable, but touchscreens offer a useful alternative option when working with Android apps and web apps built for mobile devices.

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: display, audio

IDG / Matthew Smith

Acer ships the Chromebook Spin 514 with an IPS touchscreen boasting 1920×1080 resolution. This isn’t the best display we’ve seen on his Chromebook from Acer. The Spin 513 has a more pixel-dense 13.5-inch 2256 x 1504 screen that’s as crisp and delicious as freshly baked potato chips. Still, the Spin 514’s display looks pretty sharp.

Resolution aside, the Spin 514’s image quality is good, but not great. What’s your biggest problem? Luminance. The maximum brightness I measured is just 312 nit, which is good enough for everyday indoor use, but not good enough for outdoor use or near a sunny window. The glossy coating on the display doesn’t solve the problem, it shows a clear, bright reflection that distracts from what’s on the screen. It’s the perfect laptop.

The display’s contrast and color performance are good enough for a modern laptop. 1080p video content looks real and vivid. However, IPS displays are being squeezed out by newer laptops with OLED screens, some of which are just $100-$200 more than the Spin 514. OLED laptops offer enhanced contrast and color performance that most people easily notice and like. The Spin 514’s low brightness remains a concern. LCD laptop screens are often brighter than OLEDs, but that’s not the case here.

The Spin 514’s audio is provided by a pair of upward-firing speakers. They’re not great, but they’re loud enough to fill an office with sound at max volume. .

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: webcam, microphone, biometrics

A 1080p webcam with a physical privacy shutter is tucked into the laptop’s top bezel. It’s a nice upgrade for the 720p camera, with a definite improvement in sharpness. Color reproduction in a bright room is also good. However, the exposure was often slightly off, and there was a large variation in skin tones.

The builtins are nothing special, but they work. Backup noise is often picked up, but my voice recordings seemed to provide plenty of volume and were easy to understand when played back.

The laptop does not offer biometric login.

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: Connectivity

IDG / Matthew Smith

Acer is leaning towards future-proof connectivity with a pair of USB-C ports, one on each side. The laptop comes with a USB-C charger and both ports support USB Power Delivery, so you can use either to power and charge your Chromebook. The port also has a DisplayPort Alternate Mode and can be used as a video output to a USB-C monitor (or other monitor with a suitable adapter).

The USB-C ports are combined by a single USB-A port, HDMI output, and 3.5mm audio output. I wish it had a second USB-A port and a MicroSD card reader. Still, the Spin 514’s connectivity should be good enough for most people.

Wireless options include Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. In my testing, Wi-Fi performance was fast and reliable, hitting around 250 Mbps two rooms away from the router and up to 80 Mbps in an outdoor office 60 feet away from the router.

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: Performance

The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is available with several AMD Ryzen processors including the 6-core, 12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 5625C. Combined with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of solid state storage, it’s also a top Chromebook.

Unsurprisingly, the powerful processor gave excellent results in our benchmarks.

• CrXPRT 2 Performance Score: 199
• Speedometer 2.0: 210
• Basemark Web 3.0: 1024.38
• Crack in Javascript 1.1: 522.6
• Jetstream: 222.991

Those scores beat the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 with Intel Core i5-1135G7. In CrXPT 2, Spin 514’s score of 199 easily beats Spin 713’s 164, beating out the Snapdragon-equipped HP Chromebook x2 11’s score of 52. Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 with Intel Pentium Gold 7505 also scored 124 points.

The Spin 514 loses out to the Framework Laptop Chromebook with its Intel Core i5-1240P processor, but it’s a close race. The Intel Core i5-1240P in the framework is about 5% faster than the Spin 514 overall. This is not a big difference and in normal use they look the same.

As the Spin 514’s benchmark scores suggest, performance feels snappy in real life. Juggling many browser tabs is not a problem. A new app will open instantly. File transfer is fast. Honestly, the Spin 514 is overkill for the tasks most Chrome OS users are likely to demand, but the extra performance headroom helps future-proof the laptop.

The Spin 514 performs well, but I have to mention the Windows conflict. With a Ryzen 5 5500U, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage, Acer’s Aspire 5 can be found for under $700. The same goes for Lenovo’s IdeaPad and Flex models, HP’s entry-level 14- and 15-inch laptops, and Dell’s Inspiron line. The increased RAM and storage of Windows alternatives will allow you to perform tasks that the Spin 514 can’t handle.

how about the game? It’s a mixed bag. Arguably, the Spin 514’s x86-based hardware is very different from that found in most Android devices. call of duty: mobile Crashed to desktop after boot screen. pokemon unite It launched, but I couldn’t get the game from the login screen. Asphalt 8 At least it seemed playable and running at an acceptable frame rate.

Cloud gaming is a better option and works fine on Wi-Fi 6. Launch Nvidia GeForce Now and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy At 1080p resolution with Ultra settings and ray tracing enabled. It looked just as gorgeous as a local high-end video card. However, GeForce Now works just as well on less capable hardware, so the Spin 514 can’t be credited for this result.

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: Battery life

The AMD Ryzen 5625C is powerful, but with a default thermal design power of just 15 Watts, it can consume power as needed. In the CrXPRT 2 battery life test, the laptop lasted 13 hours and 13 minutes. That puts it on par with the Framework Laptop Chromebook and just short of the old Acer Spin 713.

In real life, the laptop lasts even longer for light usage like streaming video or working on Google Docs with the display set to low brightness. The laptop can handle 8 hours of work with at least a few hours of battery left in the tank.

Acer Chromebook Spin 514: Summary

The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is one of the fastest Chromebooks available today, beaten only by alternatives powered by Intel’s Core i5-1240P processor (and it’s a close call). The Spin 514 also has a great keyboard, great touchpad, attractive display, long battery life and a convenient USB-C port.

Pricing is a stumbling block. At around $700 for the Spin 514, it feels steep compared to Windows laptops. The Acer Aspire 5, Lenovo IdeaPad 5, and HP 14 offer similar processors at similar prices, but with more RAM and solid state storage. However, the Spin 514 is available in cheaper configurations. It’s the better choice for most people, as it offers most of the perks of Spin 514 with a modest (and acceptable) performance penalty.