Acer’s new Chromebook Plus Spin 514, introduced at IFA 2025 in Berlin, is the corporate’s first laptop computer to make use of the Arm-based MediaTek Kompanio Extremely 910 processor. That chip was used within the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 that launched earlier this summer time, and it was key to delivering wonderful efficiency and marathon battery life in that fanless laptop computer. I dubbed the Lenovo “the brand new king of Chromebooks,” and this $699.99 Acer, launching this month, appears poised to be a strong various — particularly should you favor a touchscreen convertible and don’t thoughts listening to a fan now and again.
Acer despatched me the brand new Chromebook Plus Spin 514 for early testing, and after some transient hands-on time I can already inform battery life is once more more likely to be one of many Kompanio Extremely’s strengths. The IPS show choices with 1920 x 1200 or 2880 x 1800 decision aren’t going to hold with the punchiness of the OLED panels within the Lenovo. However the draw of the Acer is its Gorilla Glass-covered 14-inch touchscreen with help for USI 2.0 styluses (that are bought individually), permitting you to make use of it like a pill, draw on it, or take handwritten notes.
That, and it has extra, sooner ports than the Lenovo. The Chromebook Plus Spin 514 has two 10Gbps USB-C ports with DisplayPort and Energy Supply, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The Acer additionally has a 70Wh battery in comparison with Lenovo’s 60Wh, and just like the Lenovo it comes with Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, as much as 16GB of RAM, and as much as 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. For a webcam, it provides both 1080p or 5-megapixel choices.
What the Acer doesn’t have, nevertheless, is a side-mounted energy button. Which is a bit odd on a 2-in-1, as a result of if it goes to sleep in pill mode it’s important to attain round to the keyboard deck for the ability button. Its up-firing audio system are additionally on the keyboard deck, so in tent mode or pill mode you’re transferring its already meager, thin-sounding audio system away from you.
Images by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge
