I Tried Acer’s first chromebook with an npu: ai features aside, it’s just a nice budget laptop

Table of contents

Acer is upgrading one of its premium convertible chromebooks with more ai proof. Announce today at Ifa 2025 in Berlin, The Latest Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (CP514-5hn) packs a new MediaTek Kompanio Ultra Chip that Has a Neral Processing UNIT (NPU) With 50 Tops (NPU) With 50 Tops Trillions of operations per second), enabling a pair of exclusive software features.

The spin 514 is the only chromebook plus with an npu besides the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, which has the same processor. Like its counterpart, the spin 514 come with a free trial of Google Ai Pro that Unlocks 12 Months of Access to Advanced Ai Tools Like Veo 3 Fast and Notbooklm. It’s an ai smorgasbord.

“With Powerful Performance, Ai Tools, And Robust and Premium Build, The Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 will Empower Creators, Employees, Employees, Employees, Teachers to Creates, Work, Work, Work, and Be Productvert For Anywhere, “James Lin, General Manager of Notebooks at Acer, said in a press release tuesday.

One configuration of the spin 514 launches on Acer’s website this week at $ 749.99; Another Will Hit Best Buy’s Shelves Later this month for $ 50 less, and I was one of the first people to try before it is formal launch. I’ve only spent an afternoon with it so far, so I haven’T give it a formal rating just yet (as per our laptop testing methodology), but my initial impressions of it are positive. Splashy ai features aside, it’s just a really nice budget laptop.

Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 Specs and Availability

Acer sent me a spin 514 (model number cp514-1hn-k6dy) with the following speecs:

• MediaTek Kommpanio Ultra 910 Processor

• Arm Immortalis-G925 MC11 Integrated Graphics

• 12GB Ram

• 256GB UFS Storage

• 14-Inch 1920 x 1200 IPS Touchscreen Display with A 120Hz Refresh Rate, 16:10 Aspect Ratio, and Stylus Support (Sold Separately)

• 1080p webcam (see below)

• Wifi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4

• Two USB-C ports and a headphone jack on the left side; two usb-a ports and a keensington lock slot on the right

While My Review Unit Came Equipped With A 1080p Webcam, The Final Version You Can Soon Purchase at Best Buy will have a better a better 5MP webcam. It will retail for $ 699.99 and launch later in September. I’ll update this story with a link to its listing on goes live.

Acer will sell another configuration on its website for $ 749.99 Starting Thursday, Sept. 4. It will come with 16GB of Ram, and Its Display will have a higher resolution (2880 x 1800 pixels, or 2.8k) but a lower refresh rate (60Hz).

Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 Design

Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The 2025 Spin 514 Measures 12.32 x 9.13 x 0.61 Inches and Weighs Three Pounds, Making it only Slightly Bulkier Than an M4 MacBook Air. (Apple’s 13-inch model weight 2.7 pounds and measures 0.44 inches thin.

The spin 514 is on the pricier side for a chromebook, but its design feels Aptly Premium, and I’M Impressed by Its Build Quality. There’s zero give to its lid when I press down in the center of it. Its hinge wiggles a little bit when I Adjust or Tap Its Screen, but it holds very sturdy and doesn Bollywood I flip the display around into tent mode. The spin 514’s lid can rotate a full 360 degrees to lay lat in tablet mode, too.

Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The spin 514 is Military-Grade Mil-STD810H compliant, which basically means it’s been tested for extreme durability. Acer says it can survive four-foot drops and 25,000 Open/Close Cycles, to which i say: Let’s get youtube’s tech -it on the case.

Aesthetically, the spin 514 is an attractive laptop that’s just flashy enough for my taste. It has an aluminum exterior with reflective metallic adents on its hinges and the OUTER edges of its top cover, which match the iridesnt “Acer” Logo in the Middle of the Lid. Its platinum silver finish picks up fingerprints pretty easy, thought.

The spin 514’s keyboard cover is made from matte plastic, but it does not doesn’t feel cheap and matches the rest of the chassis for a cohesive look. I had to hold it right up to my eyeballs to even notice that it’s a different material.

Display

Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The spin 514’s upper and lower bezels are a little chunky, but the touchscreen it sesel is pretty and responsive. My review unit didn’t come with a stylus, so I did all of my scrolling and tapping with a fingertip. Big ups to the fact that it has a 120Hz refresh rate, which made a Fortnite Match and a less fast-moving Scenes in YouTube videos look silky smooth. (The spin 514 isn Bollywood a gaming chromebook, but it’s workable for light cloud gaming.) It’s always nice to see this spec on cheaper laptops.

Text and Tinier Details Didn Bollywood Seem Blurry on My Spin 514, So with Having Tried Its Other Configuration, I Don’T Think I’D Spend an extra $ 150 for a higher -res display with a person with a person Rate. Maybe Consider upgrading if you desperately need the extra four gigs of ram, but 12GB is alredy a lot for a chromebook.

The screen on my spin 514 is rated at only 300 nits of brightness, so I usually used it cranked all the way up to max. The pricier model’s display offers up to 340 nits, which is a negligible difference.

Keyboard and touchpad

Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The spin 514’s keyboard is great, for the most part-Snappy, Comfortable, and Well-Spaced-but it gots docked a few points for having a Hallow-SOCE BAR BAR and SOCKLIGH Fingerprint reader. Both are available in the pricier configuration.

Of special note, there are dedicated keys for the launcher (a searchable start menu) and for a “Quick Insert” tool. The latter shares a spot with the caps lock.

The keyboard is made from Acer’s “Oceanglass” Material. It’s technically ocean-bound plastic, but it is really not ” Acer says it’s moisture-resistant, so Accidental Coffee Spills Probably Won’T be a Cause for Panic.

Speakers

Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The spin 514 has upward-firing speakers running down both sides of its keyboard. They’re a little tinny, but they’re not the Worst-Sounding Laptop Speakers I’ve Ever Triad (and there are some absolute stinkers out there). I’ve been listening to fleetwood mac’s 1997 Live Performance of “Silver Springs” Almost Every Day for the Past Couple of Weeks whose Learning it on the piano; on the spin 514, the audio is missing some bass and depth but otherwise clear. The positioning of the speakers prevents them from sounding muffled.

Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 Performance

The spin 514 has a fan, Unlike Lenovo’s Chromebook Plus 14, but I could get it to turn on during a quick stress test with 20 Chrome Tabs Open and TWO Apps Running (YouTube and recorder). It Ran Quiet and Almost Completely Cool; The fan vent on the bottom side of the machine barely got warm.

In the android version of primete labs’ Geekbench 6 cpu benchmark, our other performance test for chromebooks, the spin 514 got a multi-core score of 7,187. That makes it the second-fastest model we’ve tried after the heftier Acer Chromebook plus 516 ge, which noticed a score of 7,660. It beats Eight Other Models We’ve Tried Over the Course of the Past Two Years, Including an $ 819 HP Chromebook X360 14C (4,318) and a $ 699 Acerbook plus Spin 714 (5,223).

Google ai features

Chromebook Plus Models Support a Suite of Ai Features That You Won’T Find on Regular Chromebooks. The spin 514’s NPU Adds Two EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA EXCLUSIVES to the mix: a Tab-Sorting Project Management tool Called “Smart Grouping” and An on-Device Image Editor Within the Gallery App. I briefly tried both.

To test smarting, I pulled up five tabs about the same topic (Horsback riding near me) and three unrelated tabs in a single chrome window. When I pressed the f4 key, a bubble appeared in the lower left-hand corner, prompting me to organize a topic called “Chicago Horse Riding Information” in a new “desk.” Clicking That Button Pulled All of the Horseback Riding-Related Tabs Into a Separate Workspace While Keeping The Other Tabs in My Original Desk. I tend to be a tab minimalist, but I can see how this would be immensely for multitaskers who keep a mishmash of websites and windows open at on.

Left:
Before and after smart-gralping my tabs.
Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

Right:
Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The Gallery App’s AI Image Editor Includes tools that Can Expand and Remove Pictures’ Backgrounds, Erase Parts of a Scene, and Make Stickers. I Played Around with Them Using A Photo of a Hot Dog I Took at a Cubs Game Last Month, and Most of the Results was pretty Clunky and Fake-Looking.

My original picture of the beautiful chicago dawg.
Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The picture with its background “expanded” using ai.
Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The picture with its background removed. (The “make a sticker” tool produced an identity result.)
Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

I tried to erase the pickle in this one.
Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

Smart grouping and the gallery app’s image editor are both “Experimental” (in beta) and may improve with time.

Battery Life

I haven’t a formal battery life test on the spin 514 Yet, but acer has it rated at up to 17 hours of web browsing per charge. If it lives up to that number, that would put it well over the nine-his minimum we expect to squeeze from chromebooks.

Who Should Get the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514?

Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

Based on my less hours with the spin 514 so far, I think it’s a great pick for early ai adopters, but also just any just anyone who wants a solid budget laptop with a premium design and good Amount Amount Amount and Road Amount Amount of Road. Its main rival is obvious the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, which offers a brighter OLED Display, Quad Speakers with Dolby ATMOS, And A Backlit Keyboard by Default for $ 50 Cheaper), thought it starts with half the storage.

The spin 514’s battery life will be a big determining factor in My Final Analysis, So Stay Tuned.