For many computer users, the Acer Chromebook Plus 514 will be a real salvation after laptops with the annoying Windows operating system, which, despite its significant advantages, has serious drawbacks compared to Chrome OS. Unlike most models with this OS, the hero of the review has much more powerful hardware. It’s like a Chromebook at maximum settings.
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| Technical characteristics | |
| Screen | 14″ IPS 1920×1200 60 Hz |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 5 7520C 15 W |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR5 5500 MHz |
| Drive | 512 GB PCI-E 3.0 x4 |
| Video card | AMD Radeon 610M |
| Wireless interfaces | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1 |
| Video connector | HDMI 1.4 |
| USB connectors | 2 x Type C 3.2 gen1 |
| 1 x Type A 3.2 gen1 | |
| Audio jack | 3.5 mm jack |
| Camera | HD 720p |
| Audio | DTS 2 speaker |
| Power supply | 65 W |
| Battery | 53 W*h |
| Additionally | Camera shutter |
| Kensington / noble lock | |
| Housing material | Matte plastic |
| Weight | 1.42 kg |
| Dimensions | 319x227x20 mm |
| Operating system | Chrome OS |
Acer has recently begun to use more and more eco-friendly materials in the packaging of its laptops. Acer Chromebook Plus 514 is no exception. Inside the box, the seals, and everything else is also made of environmentally friendly materials.
65 W power supply with USB Type C connector, 220 V modular power cable. The laptop can be charged using other chargers or power banks with the appropriate output voltage. No additional accessories are included.
The hero of the review does not stand out in any special way, offering a modest, restrained design. Despite the inexpensive plastic case, it is assembled with high quality. Nothing squeaks or falls apart in your hands, and there are no complaints about the build quality.
The laptop complies with MIL-STD 810H, which means that in theory it should be reliable in every day, not too careful use. It’s not for nothing that chromebooks are bought for schools to be used by untidy children.
The surface is matte, does not collect fingerprints, and is hard to get dirty. On the front panel, there is only one sticker with some characteristics of the device that the manufacturer emphasizes. Visually, the Acer Chromebook Plus 514 CB514-3HT is perceived as an ordinary office laptop for always busy people, not those who want to stand out.
The lid can be opened with one hand, although the bottom of the laptop is slightly raised. The screen can be tilted 180 degrees, which reduces the risk of breakage for those with naughty children at home.
The laptop has two USB Type C 3.2 Gen 1 and one Type A, also of the high-speed standard. On the right is a 3.5 mm jack for audio equipment, and on the left is HDMI. There is a not critical connector for a Kensington lock. There is no memory card slot.
Acer Chromebook Plus 514 has a classic keyboard for its class without a number pad. The key set is slightly different from classic Windows laptops, but the ergonomics of Chrome OS are easy to get used to. The main thing is to learn the keyboard shortcuts, of which there are many.
The left Shift is long, the Caps Lock key is the main menu launcher, and the Windows button is simply not there. Because of this, the Ctrl and Alt buttons have become long. The ergonomics are excellent, although some people will not like the twin arrows, the absence of the Num Pad and some other buttons.
Acer Chromebook Plus 514 does not have a Russian keyboard layout, only Ukrainian and English. Of course, there is the letter G, which many people have to search for on the Internet to copy and paste or use keyboard shortcuts.
The touchpad is large, sensitive, and pleasant to the touch. Its problem is the software implementation in the Chrome OS operating system. It seems that the mouse cursor moves at a very low frame rate, and also has inertial acceleration by default, which is quite annoying. We’ll talk about this a little further in a separate section on software.
The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 has a 14-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. The 16:10 aspect ratio is only beneficial, as it gives you more vertical viewing. The IPS matrix has a soft image with poor color coverage (NTSC 45% according to the manufacturer) and a good brightness range.
It’s good in the sense that the minimum level is very low, but the maximum brightness is no longer impressive. At least the fact that the surface is matte saves it, so it behaves adequately in the sun. Only agronomists who work under the scorching sun all day will be dissatisfied, but they are unlikely to need such a laptop.
Viewing angles are poor. The image loses saturation, especially in white. Support for touch input is good, but there are few practical scenarios for using the sensor. The surface is matte, so cleaning it will be more difficult, as in the case of glossy displays.
The sound is of medium volume, of good quality, although low frequencies are lacking, as well as volume. It’s fine for watching movies before bed, but it won’t suit music lovers.
The front camera is of low quality, with a maximum photo resolution of HD (1.2 MP). In ideal daylight conditions, you can hold online conferences, but at night with artificial lighting, it’s better not to turn it on. The only advantage of the webcam is the built-in mechanical curtain for those who are afraid for their privacy.
Since the Chrome OS operating system doesn’t have a lot of professional software, this section will focus on browser performance. The web browser has become the main program for all users, regardless of their occupation, so it is perhaps the most important benchmark of all.
In Speedometer 3.0. Google Octane 2.0, WebXPRT 4, we got the results typical of typical budget laptops. The main difference between Acer Chromebook Plus 514 is a lightweight OS that does not take up computer resources, as Windows likes to do with its updates.
There is a loss of performance in Speedometer 3.0 due to the battery, but not too much. A 25-30% performance reduction is still a good result for an x86 processor, but such proportions are not everywhere. In the WebXPRT 4 test, the difference becomes huge. In practice, the laptop is noticeably faster than the power supply.
Overall, the Chromebook is fast and stable when used for its intended purpose. Large web applications are not easy to use, there may be slight freezes in the interface, but this does not interfere with the work. Well-optimized websites load instantly. When watching YouTube, there are no skips in 4K video frames, which can sometimes be a problem with top laptops based on Windows 11.
The RAM is up to 16 GB, which is a lot for Chrome OS. You can confidently run hundreds of tabs, work with dozens of documents at once, and not worry about running out of RAM. Typical Chromebooks have half the memory, so the hero lives up to its name with the Plus prefix.
The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 covers the needs of all professions that depend mainly on web applications rather than proprietary software, and now there are most of them, oddly enough. Among its fellow chromebooks, the hero of the review is one of the most powerful, but for the money there are better models without an operating system bundled (or rather with MS-DOS).
The only option to play high-quality AAA games on Acer Chromebook Plus 514 CB514-3HT is cloud gaming. In all other cases, you will have to limit yourself to what the modern Internet offers in the browser, or play some games from the Play Market store.
Not all games work with the Android operating system, many of them are simply not in the list of supported games, some do not work in full screen, do not display textures, crash, etc.
For convenient control, the developers have provided emulation of virtual keyboard strokes. You can customize these shortcuts for almost every game if you would rather not play on the touch screen.
If you remove the restrictions and switch to developer mode, additional gaming features open up, just like a typical Linux machine. Out of the box, the Acer Chromebook Plus 514 is as non-gaming solution as possible for those who are not interested in men drawn on the screen (read games).
In office mode with a low processor load, Acer Chromebook Plus 514 can hold a charge for 12-15 hours. This figure will greatly depend on factors such as screen brightness, keyboard and sound backlighting, connected peripherals, etc.
The laptop is literally impossible to heat up, and it makes noise only in certain scenarios. In 90% of cases, the fans are turned off, so Acer Chromebook Plus 514 is silent, but you can hear the whistle of the throttles if you put your ear to the keyboard.
A good power controller is worth highlighting separately. The laptop charges relatively quickly, and the power supply delivers 66-68 watts at the beginning of the process. After the battery is replenished to 80+%, the power decreases, but it still allows you to charge Acer Chromebook Plus 514 from zero to 100% in just over an hour.
The system is light, fast and convenient, but after the first launch it takes up a surprisingly large amount of disk space. It’s not clear what takes up so much space. Chrome OS has both its major advantages and minor drawbacks. In the review of another Acer laptop, we already praised this operating system, but there are some nuances that we’ll talk about.
By default, Acer Chromebook Plus 514 CB514-3HT has inertial acceleration of the touchpad cursor and mouse. It might seem like a small thing, but in fact the problem is huge. Let’s explain it with a simple example.
Over the years of use, a person gets so used to the touchpad/mouse that they intuitively feel how many millimeters they need to move their finger to move the cursor by a certain number of pixels on the screen.
Acer Chromebook Plus 514 CB514-3HT completely breaks this concept because at first the cursor moves slowly and then speeds up. The worst part is that this setting is the default and will make all laptop owners suffer.
The laptop supports working with Android apps, but not all of them. Advanced users can use Linux programs by switching to developer mode. However, standard applications and browser extensions from the official store are enough for basic needs.
In general, the Acer Chromebook Plus 514 has excellent software that will not test the nervous system of its owner. Simplicity is the key to success, which Google knows very well, so they simplified everything as much as possible.
All you need to do is log in to your account, connect your personal phone via a wireless connection, and you have a full-fledged ecosystem where documents, photos, and files are fully synchronized. Of course, this applies primarily to owners of Android smartphones.
The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 is a good choice for a couch journalist. With such a laptop and low-quality neural networks, a copywriter can easily cope with their work because the laptop has a comfortable keyboard and a giant touchpad with the one nuance already mentioned.
If you can quickly get used to keyboard shortcuts, the inertia of the touchpad is incredibly annoying. It’s hard to believe that the developers thought to check this unnecessary box by default. It’s a pity for those users who won’t find this option in the settings.
Overall, the Acer Chromebook Plus 514 was a pleasant experience: it’s battery-operated, moderately fast, charges from a power bank, and works stably without annoying Windows updates that force a reboot.
Cost Acer Chromebook Plus 514 CB514-3HT is 27,200 UAH, and this is the main obstacle to successful sales. For this money, the hero of the review has strong competitors based on Windows 11 or without OS. It is important to note that this model is sold officially, and most competitors are unofficial.
You can also add just 4000-5000 UAH and get MacBook Air M1 which is better in everything but memory capacity.
HP Pavilion Plus 14-ey0000 with AMD Ryzen 5 7540U, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage offers a better (but not touchscreen) Quad HD 120 Hz screen and more battery capacity. Windows 11 operating system is included.
Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 4 based on Intel Core i3-1315U does not come with an operating system and works with DDR4 memory, but the price is nice.
