Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) Review

Design and Keyboard

• More generic looks
• Middling port selection
• Tactile keyboard but smaller trackpad

The Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) has quite a generic finish, admittedly, with a silver metal chassis that’s pleasantly non-descript. It’s solid enough and has minimal branding or flair, apart from an iridescent Acer logo and Chromebook Plus branding on the lid.

It tips the scales at 1.36kg, which is on the heavier side for a laptop this size, but should be fine for those on the go. Then again, it needs some extra mass for the 360-degree hinges that turn this laptop into a tablet.

As for ports, on the left we’ve got a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-Cs alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack and battery status LED. The right side houses two USB-A ports and a Kensington Nano lock. That isn’t a bad port selection, but it feels a little one-dimensional, especially lacking any form of HDMI or similar and faster Thunderbolt-capable USB-C ports.

The Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026)’s keyboard is a smaller 65% layout and has keys that offer some solid tactility, and I’ve got no real qualms about it. On that note, while I’m grateful there is some white backlighting for after-dark working, it isn’t the most even. 

The trackpad offers some reasonable real estate for your fingers, although it feels a little skittish, being a Gorilla Glass trackpad and all, and is a little on the smaller side against other recent laptops I’ve tested.

Display and Sound

• High-res 14-inch IPS screen
• Oddly only 60Hz
• Reasonable brightness and colours

The Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) is available with a choice of screens, with lower-end models coming with a 14-inch 1920×1200 screen, and the higher-spec versions upping the resolution to 2880×1800 for much stronger detail. In any case, both are IPS, rather than OLED, although the 120Hz refresh rate option is only available on the lower-res screen.

My sample shipped with the higher resolution screen, which is especially sharp and detailed for a smaller 14-inch screen. The fact that this higher-res screen is only 60Hz is a surprise, especially given we’ve got higher refresh rate panels available on Windows laptops that don’t have the same trade-off with resolution. It is only 60Hz, so lacks the silky smoothness that some ultrabooks are offering with 120Hz refresh rates, but it gets the job done, I suppose.

It is also touch-enabled with a 360-degree hinge able to turn the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) into a tablet of sorts. This laptop also supports USI 2.0 styluses, although one isn’t included in the box – they are a cost-effective addition, though, if you wanted one.

Acer quotes the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026)’s screen to have 340 nits of peak brightness, which seems about right to my eyes. It should meet our typical 300 nits target and mean this laptop is fine for indoor and outdoor use, while a quoted 100% SRGB coverage means mainstream colours are well-represented.

The speakers here are fine for casual listening, although I wouldn’t push them too hard as they can sound quite thin at higher volumes. They are upwards-firing, though, so won’t necessarily get muffled if you use the laptop on a softer surface such as a bed or sofa.

Performance

• Interesting MediaTek SoC inside
• Solid benchmark scores against key rivals
• Stingier RAM and storage for the price

The Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) ships with a new MediaTek chip that falls under its flagship Kompanio Ultra branding – to be specific, it’s the MediaTek Kompanio Ultra 910.

The Kompanio Ultra 910 features an eight-core CPU, with a single Cortex-X925 core, three Cortex-X4 cores and a further four Cortex-A720 cores. It’s an Arm-based chip, so looks to come with similar revelations as their Windows-based Qualcomm-powered rivals with solid grunt and surprising efficiency for such a potent laptop.

The scores it achieved in the Geekbench 6 test are similar to other higher-end Chromebooks, such as the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus with its Intel Core 5 120U inside, and first-gen Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered laptops such as the Asus Zenbook A14. That being said, the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) falls slightly behind in multi-threaded tasks against comparably premium Windows ultrabooks.

This particular model comes with 12GB of RAM, which feels like splitting the difference between a lowly 8GB and the standard 12GB, but it should be okay for a degree of more intensive multitasking. A 256GB drive inside admittedly is okay for a Chromebook though, as most of your work is likely going on Google Docs, Sheets or other components of the G-Suite of productivity applications.

It isn’t the standard-issue NVMe storage you might expect, though, as Acer has opted to use slower UFS storage here. In my experience, I didn’t have any issues using Chrome, Spotify and benchmarking software during my time with the Galaxy Chromebook Plus feeling slow, but your mileage may vary.

Software

• ChromeOS remains lightweight and speedy
• Chromebook Plus adds useful extras including Gemini AI
• Magic Eraser and Google Meet conferencing tools most useful

The first thing to note about the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) is that it runs ChromeOS, meaning it’s got a clean, lightweight UI with no real bloatware pre-installed, which makes it easy to get around and jump into apps such as Google’s G Suite of productivity apps.

Where this particular Chromebook differs is in the fact that it forms part of the Chromebook Plus canon of machines. This was a classification that Google introduced a couple of years ago that could be capable of certain tasks by having above a certain specification.

Being a Chromebook Plus model also means the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) benefits from some additional quality-of-life features, in the same way that Microsoft’s designated Copilot+ PCs do. For instance, they have access to Google Gemini right from the taskbar, where you can ask it all manner of things, including any questions, or even to help you understand or rewrite a document.

In addition, you also get handy AI features such as Magic Eraser, Google’s clever Photo editing trickery that could previously be found on Pixel and later other Android phones. This automatically erases unwanted things from photos, working the same way on both devices. You select an image, and it recognises potentially unwanted items to remove by placing a white and grey outline around it. To remove it, you press done.

It’s very clever and works well, even on images where you need nothing removed. For instance, in a photo I took when I went to London a few weeks ago, there were some unwanted people in the corner obstructing the view of the beach. I selected those people to be removed, and sure enough, the AI did a solid job of getting rid of them.

Other features that the Chromebook Plus software update has brought with it are more focused on a Chromebook being a useful device for productivity workloads, including working with G-Suite apps and Google Meet. For instance, it offers Offline File Sync, which backs up files usually saved in the cloud to be saved on the device’s internal drive. This is hidden away in the settings menu a little, but is nonetheless useful for saving documents offline if you don’t have constant internet access.

In addition, the Chromebook Plus devices also benefit from some handy features for video conferencing, such as Live Translate, which uses AI to translate any captions into a different language. It also works for YouTube videos, too. Google Meet also comes with similar convenient features as the Windows Studio effects on Copilot+ PCs, such as auto framing and rebalancing uneven lighting.

On the keyboard, it also comes with Google’s new Quick Insert key, where the Caps Lock key is, which opens a Spotlight Search-style menu that can be used for everything from inserting a link to looking up files and even using Gemini right from the search bar.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 13 hours 32 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting for two working days

With their lightweight operating system and more modest power, Chromebooks have often been excellent for endurance and extended battery life, with the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026) being no different. It fits a large 70Whr cell into its slim chassis that, with the brightness down to half, and a 1080p YouTube video on a loop, managed to last for 13 hours and 32 minutes before conking out.

That means you’ll easily be able to get two working days out of this Acer Chromebook before it conks out, and with some hypermiling, potentially even a third. It’s strong battery life, although not as strong as some more premium Windows laptops and other Chromebook Plus variants, such as the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus.

Acer doesn’t provide a charging brick with the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2026), perhaps owing to recent EU regulations changes, although a 65W USB-C charger was average in getting charge back into the laptop. It took 40 minutes to get from zero to a half charge, while a full charge took 85 minutes.

View Acer Chromebook Spin 514 offers

Should you buy it?