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The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Slim, Fast, Cool, Powerful

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  TLDR: This Chromebook is a Plus series model. That defines computers that use the Chrome OS Operating System with higher specifications as defined by Google. A Chromebook Plus must have at least a 12th-gen Intel i3 or 7000-series Ryzen 3 processor or identical processor power, 8 GB RAM, a minimum of 128 GB of storage, an LED illuminated full HD 1920 X 1080 IPS screen, and a full HD webcam with noise reduction. Some Plus models also have touchscreens, illuminated keyboards, 256GB of SSD storage, and USB-C ports that contain both High Speed and Display Port protocols for video output to large monitors. In addition, many Plus models also are “2 in 1” in that their display screens will rotate completely backward to form a large tablet configuration for convenience. This ACER Spin 514 model Chromebook has all of the above higher specs, with 12 GB of RAM, and the 256GB of internal UFS storage. It has standard Google AI Artificial Intelligence features. This model uses a fast and efficient Media-Tek Kompanio Ultra 910 processor and a 14” 1920 x 1200 (known as WUXGA) High Definition) IPS Gorilla Glass touchscreen LED display. The CPU is an 8 core and runs at 3.62 Ghz speed with 12 Megabytes of Level 3 cache. Onboard RAM is 12GB and is LPDDR5X. It supports 2 external 4K monitors from the USB-C with Display Port output. Being a 14” model, it does not have a dedicated number keypad; the keyboard is illuminated. The weight is 3 pounds; dimensions are 12.3 inches left to right, 9.1 inches front to back and about .6 inch high when closed. Battery life is touted at 17 hours.. It is supplied with 2 USB-C ports, 2 USB-A ports, volume controls, a headphone/microphone jack and a 65 watt AC power adapter/charger. There is a gray, padded, protective sleeve/carry case supplied in the box with a separate compartment for the AC charger and a mouse. The WiFi is 7 protocol for fast speeds. Bluetooth is 6.0 I used a USB-C multi-port docking station and the USB-C ports wonderfully put out video allowing me to use 2 large 23” monitors and also charge the Chromebook when I plugged the included Acer AC adapter into the PD Power Delivery port of the docking station. Google provides 15 Gigaytes of free online storage room for all apps combined per Gmail account. (Create more Gmail accounts to get more storage for free). Sign into a Chromebook with your gmail account and you are ready to utilize everything Chromebooks offer. All Chromebooks power up fast, are virus protected because everything goes through Google servers where viruses and hacks are screened out, and run cool and last long on a battery charge. All also have free access to Google Docs word processing, Google Sheets for spreadsheets, Google Photos to store and edit images, a free Google Voice telephone number for making calls from Android devices, Windows devices, and Chromebooks, YouTube, and other applications available free of charge. All documents created save automatically into your Google Drive offline “cloud” storage and are accessible from any computer once signed into a user's Gmail account. Google AI is built in and it is called Gemini. There is a Gemini icon on the Chromebook shelf to activate Gemini and use it verbally or by typing commands to enable services such as summarizing articles, searching anything, collect data from internet searches, generate images based on descriptions, and other functions that are yet to be created. With Gemini, a “Magic Editor” is available in Google Photos to change, edit, or manipulate photos. This is started by circling a photo section and performing changes, movements, deletions or copying to that section. Gemini is also a writing machine in that the user may type in a writing task and Gemini searches, summarizes and writes what is requested. Gemini is also a chat engine in that it will reply to questions and rebuttals to what it produces. It is able to summarize web pages quickly. Gemini Live Translate, enables Google AI translated captions for audio and video. Chromebooks also have the ability to use Microsoft apps such as Word, Excel and others with Chrome OS versions. I use the Google Docs, Sheets, Voice, Drive and YouTube on all my computers be they Chrome OS or Windows. Sign in with a Gmail account and all the files are there. Start creating on one computer, pick up on another to add or edit, sign in to another to print or continue working on documents. I also open Microsoft files into Google Docs or Sheets and then revise and update them. Anyone who has a Microsoft OneDrive for file storage can easily use the Chromebook Settings menu, download the OneDrive app, go to the Files section and integrate Microsoft OneDrive files into a Chromebook by signing into the Microsoft account. Re the Acer Spin 514: I experienced long battery life, fast WiFi response using my WiFi 6 router in my home, decent sound via BlueTooth to some JVC, Sony, and Philips headphones and quite respectable sound using the built-in speakers which fire up on both sides of the keyboard. It is very slim and lightweight; it is fast; it runs silently and cool. Battery life is very long. This Acer CB+ Spin 514 is very fast indeed, it runs cool, and allows using web browsing, word processing and playing music simultaneously with no hiccups. The video camera is 5 MegaPixels with a privacy shutter with good images when I tested it with another user using Google Meet. The single slight negative is that the keyboard keys are a light silvery white color and the white LED illumination is not very contrasty with that key color. But an illuminated keyboard is always a plus. It runs cool but has cooling slots on the bottom panel so be careful and don't place it onto sheets, blankets or a sofa while in use since a fabric surface will block the upward flow of cooling air into the bottom which is exited from the back edge below the display screen. Dust is the nemesis of good performance on any computer. Highly recommended.

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  Posted 6 days ago by AtrixNY

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Audio is below average, but overall a good system!

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  Great performer for most things What do you do with a computer? That is a good question? What I do is Google Docs, Google Sheets, YouTube, Gaming, and a ton of web browsing. For those tasks a Chromebook is pretty awesome with the exception of gaming. And this laptop is quite perfect for those things. I’m gonna break this review down into 4 parts; What I love, what I like, opportunities for improvement and what I don’t like! What I love: First and foremost, I love the battery life! It is so amazing to be able to use this without worrying about battery life compared to my Windows based machines. It’s honestly nice to be able to use this system throughout the week and not have to worry about the battery. Not only that, it charges super fast too. It seems to get to 80% super quick then slows down from 80% to 100% but 80% is quite a lot of usage. I also am a fan of the keyboard. It’s super tactile and makes typing up stuff a breeze. From emails, to work, and even this review. I really enjoyed using the keyboard. For Cloud Gaming, the new WiFi 7 network card is a nice addition. Though I still had some occasional stutters. Not sure if it’s an issue with my home network or the streaming service itself. But I experienced it on GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud. What I like: The screen is great for not being OLED. It looks pretty good. I wish it was OLED though. The colors and stuff look great for what it is though. It’s an IPS display and it’s off angle but the brightness drops considerably off angle. It’s hard to explain, but you can see the backlight shift if you move off angle. Though the bezels are gnarly! They need to minimize those for sure!! The build quality overall is good, there is some screen flex and keyboard deck flex, but you have to go looking for it to notice it. The trackpad is super responsive too, but I wish it was not a diving board style trackpad. I did enjoy the side profile and the chamfered edges. Opportunities for Improvement: The sound is quite bad. Super tinny, no base, and it’s not good. I think a lot of manufacturers neglect the audio thinking users will be okay with it. I wish these had better speakers because I love watching YouTube, PrimeVideos, etc. Even when gaming the sound could use a bit of a boost. The sound is definitely a weakness. The screen bezels are a little out of control though. I hope they tone those down in a future iteration. What I don’t like: The keyboard backlight is atrocious in both good lighting and dim lighting situations. In good lighting the light ends up hiding the keys making them hard to see. In dim lighting you really see the low quality of the keyboard lights. Really bad uniformity, some keys are significantly brighter than others, and makes the keyboard look really bad. In tent mode, there’s no rubber stoppers on the top of the display so I imagine it’ll scratch up and look bad if that’s your thing. I used tent mode during a gaming session and I honestly felt super uncomfortable with it and moving it around felt like it was scratching the paint off of it. Lastly, the mic is not good. I took a video call off this laptop and the users on the other end said I sounded rather poorly compared to my other computer. I ultimately ended up using a headset for the remainder of the call. When I reviewed the recording it was indeed not good. It’s passable, but you can tell it’s low quality. So really the audio on this laptop is quite poor. In conclusion, I’m gonna give this laptop a 5 star review for literally everything it represents, and dock a single star due to the poor audio choices. It’s a good performer, does everything I need it to do minus gaming. If it had a better mic and better speakers, it would be awesome, and if it had an OLED screen…. perfect!!!! Still, I recommend it if you're looking for a good Chromebook!

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  Posted 5 days ago by GamingBusinessGuy

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Impressive, but with a couple of caveats

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  This is a really good Chromebook with impressive specs, but I had a couple of reservations about it. Performance overall is excellent -- MediaTek has really upped their game and is no longer just a budget chip manufacturer. The MedaTek Kompanio Ultra 910 is very powerful, and along with the 12 GB of RAM, makes for quick opening of my huge Google Docs/Sheets (within a second, compared to 4-5 seconds on other Chromebooks). Gemini AI features are also quick -- it was able to generate a requested image in about a second. Media streaming was smooth and flawless, with 2K60 videos on YouTube looking dazzling on the touchscreen WUXGA (1900x1200) display. Android gaming is also impressive, which is somewhat unusual on Chromebooks in my experience. Asphalt Legends Unite (which is still a good benchmark for performance) works very smoothly, and the accelerometer is flawless for steering. It’s actually smoother than on my Pixel Tablet or Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE+. Build quality is fantastic. The body is all aluminum, with two linear feet (that I hope won’t start to peel off with age, as I’ve experienced with other devices). The hinge that allows for the screen to fold all the way back to become a tablet is very smooth, but a little too tight to allow for one-finger opening. There are 2 USB-C ports on the left and 2 USB-A ports on the right (all USB 3.2), which is an interesting placement choice -- I would’ve preferred one of each on each side. There’s also a standard headphone jack, but no microSD card reader. Stereo speakers are present on either side of the keyboard, which is much better than down-firing speakers; however, despite the DTS sound, sound quality is still what you would expect from laptop speakers. It’s all midrange, and although it can get pretty loud, it also gets fairly muddy at peak volume. The webcam works fine, and there’s a manual privacy shutter switch. The keyboard is a mixed bag, and one of my main reservations. The full-sized backlit layout and spacing is good, and key travel and tactile feel is decent. However, I’ve found that the Shift keys are not that responsive -- the main typing error I’ve noticed is missed capitalizations, which can be very frustrating when typing something formal. The touchpad is huge and works very well, but since it’s so big, I found that my palms occasionally brushed against it and caused the cursor to move. A feature that’s missing from a device of this caliber is a fingerprint sensor. I have a couple of Chromebooks with a sensor, and I’ve really come to appreciate the convenience and security, especially when logging into accounts or apps that can use a passkey. Another concern is that after only one week of testing, I’ve had an episode where the screen is black and the device seemingly unresponsive upon opening the lid (usually while charging). I can tell the Chromebook is on because of the keyboard backlight, but I had to force a shutdown by pressing and holding the Power key for 10 seconds, then reboot. I’m not sure if this is a hardware issue, or possibly a ChromeOS bug (I’ve seen this happen on one of my other Chromebooks as well, which is also a Chromebook Plus). My unit came with a basic but nice fabric carrying case, with a zippered exterior pocket. Overall, this is an impressive Chromebook, but if possible, you may want to test the keyboard yourself at a physical Best Buy store to see if you run into the same problem that I encountered.

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  Posted 3 days ago by William C