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Battery life in Windows laptops has improved vastly in the past year or so, but we haven’t quite seen the same leap forward in Chromebooks. That looks set to change, however, with the latest release from Acer. The Taiwanese company took to the stage at the IFA technology show in Berlin, and one of the star turns was the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (CP514-5HN) – a 2-in-1 convertible with quoted battery life of up to 17 hours.
The new laptop is powered by the MediaTek Kompanio Ultra 910, which, as well as being super efficient, comes with a built-in NPU capable of delivering 50 TOPS of AI performance, enough to gain Chromebook Plus accreditation. It’s among the first wave of ARM-based Chromebooks to do so, joining the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, announced earlier this year, and the Asus 1505CKA.
- 14in 2,880 x 1,800, 340 nit; or 1,920 x ,1200, 300 nit, 60Hz touchscreen
- MediaTek Kompanio Ultra 920 processor
- ARM Immortalis-G925 MC11 GPU
- Up to 16GB of RAM
- Up to 256GB UFS 4.0 storage
- 5MP webcam with built-in privacy shutter
- 2 x USB-C Gen 2 (10Gbits/sec), 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1
- 70Wh lithium-ion battery for up to 17 hours of battery life
- Dimensions: 313 x 232 x 15.5mm (WDH)
- Weight: 1.36kg
- Price: from €699
- Availability: TBC
New features and first impressions
That Chromebook Plus badge brings with it the ability to carry out certain AI operations not available to regular Chromebooks, a number of which are new this year.
Smart Grouping, for instance, uses AI to organise your browser tabs by theme automatically – which could be useful if, like me, you tend to work with tens of tabs all open at once.
There are also new tools available in the Gallery app, such as the ability to erase objects and expand backgrounds. These make use of the MediaTek chip’s 50-TOPS NPU to perform AI operations on-device, instead of having some remote data centre perform the task for you.
And to promote these new AI capabilities, Google is throwing in a free year-long subscription to its Google AI Pro plan, which gets you the latest version of Gemini Pro and 2TB of cloud storage space.
As for the hardware, this is a premium laptop with the features to match – not some bargain basement Chromebook you might have bought your ten-year-old for schoolwork a few years back.
It comes with a 14in touchscreen with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 and a 360-degree hinge that folds back on itself, allowing it to be set up in a number of different positions. There is the option for a higher resolution display screen – at 2,880 x 1,800 – but that has a negative impact on battery life and, presumably, price.
The display supports USI 2.0 styluses, too, for sketching and jotting notes while the laptop is in tablet mode. And although one isn’t included in the price, you can pick up a third-party pen for the relatively small outlay of around £25 to £30.
The laptop comes with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 256GB of fast UFS 4 storage. It’s reasonably slim and lightweight, too. It’s not quite as feather-light as Acer’s new Swift Air 16 laptop – that comes in at a remarkable 990g – but 1.36kg is perfectly acceptable for a machine in this class, and at 15.5mm thin, it’s still far from chunky.
And elsewhere, the specification ticks all the boxes you need it to. There’s a sharp 5MP webcam for video calls, a MIL-STD 810H compliance rating so you can be sure it will shrug off the rough and tumble of life at college or university. Acer says the screen hinge has been tested for up to 25,000 open and close cycles, and the laptop’s ports have been reinforced, too.
Generally, build quality feels very solid. That hinge isn’t at all insubstantial and feels ready to take a fair amount of abuse, and my first impressions of the keyboard and touchpad were positive too. The keys have a nice springy bounce to them, plenty of travel and the deck is reasonably firm. There’s lots of space between each key to minimise typos and the touchpad is generously sized.
The only real disappointment is that the keyboard backlight is optional – I think this ought to be a mandatory feature for every laptop on the market.
Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 hands-on: Early verdict
With prices expected to start at £599, the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 looks to be a cracking laptop for the money. It’s slim, felt sturdy and comfortable in use during the few minutes I had to try it out and the display is bright enough to use in most environments.
The extra AI features look nice, but they come in second place to battery life that looks like it could rival the latest Windows and Qualcomm machines for longevity. I reckon it would make a great laptop for any student or, for that matter, anyone looking for a laptop to just get things done without having to deal with the fuss of Windows updates.
