I used to love Chromebooks, to the point where my main laptop was a Chromebook for a few years. But lately, it’s felt more and more like the platform has been struggling to retain relevance, and the latest Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 – besides being a mouthful – basically paints a perfect picture of that.
ChromeOS as a whole is in flux at the moment, with the future outlook constantly changing. Technically speaking, as our Abner Li brought out, Chromebooks are better today than they’ve ever been. It’s full of new features and has built out a relatively compelling platform for web apps and for AI, all while an Android base looms in its future. But the hardware, as of late, feels both uninspired and not particularly compelling.
The new Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 really cemented that for me again.
In a brief hands-on at IFA 2025, I got to try out the machine. It feels snappy on top of MediaTek’s Kompanio Ultra chipset, and the display is rather good as well. According to The Verge which has had a unit for a while now, the battery life is also pretty solid.
The hardware, though, felt largely mediocre to me. The chassis is metal, but it feels like plastic with a good amount of flex and lacks the premium touch that most metal laptops evoke. The keyboard is fine, and the trackpad feels decent too, but it’s all very average. Especially for a Chromebook that costs $700. And Acer’s not alone here. I have very similar feelings about Lenovo’s latest release as well, which I’ve been using on and off for the past few weeks.
To me, these premium Chromebooks remain largely an oxymoron. ChromeOS thrives when it’s offering a better experience than Windows for less money, but the advancements in hardware on Windows, and even more so on macOS, make buying a generation or two old “proper” laptop a lot more compelling, or just saving up a couple hundred extra dollars for a new machine.
What do you think? Have you used one of these high-end Chromebooks?
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