They’re not meant to be flashy or to impress with a gaudy set of features. If your computing needs don’t really extend much beyond writing and filing copy, spreadsheet maintenance and a spot of Netflix on the side, then the Acer Chromebook 514 will meet your needs, for less than a Windows-equivalent device. From empty, I was able to get around 73-75% of the tank full after an hour on the mains. Running Geekbench 4 gave me single and multi-core scores of 1391 and 2733 respectively, a little under the Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1 (1769 and 3327), and far lower than what I saw when I benched the Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14, which gave me 4436 and 8763. Touch display (as tested) looks great. For those looking for a compact 14” Chromebook with a long-lasting battery, … The Acer Chromebook 514’s 14-inch touchscreen display is not one of the brightest I’ve seen, meaning that Netflix and YouTube streams, particularly night-time/interior scenes, can sometimes look gloomy. If you only need a laptop for writing, spreadsheets and email, and you’re looking to save money, this is an ideal choice. Yes. The trackpad is well sized, responsive and accurate, if a little slow for my tastes, but nothing that some fiddling in the settings couldn’t fix. You get the same thin-feeling plastic keycaps here, with the same low travel and relatively low spring action – typing on the Acer Chromebook 514 is fine, but it’s not exactly snappy. Thanks to the 6mm narrow bezel and wide viewing angle of the Full HD IPS screen and you can enjoy the full majesty of films, videos and TV shows. The solid metal chassis, however, means that the deck around the keyboard is free from any obvious flex. Thomas Newton has reported on UK consumer technology and telecoms for over ten years, and is currently working for Trusted Reviews as a freelance writer, mainly contributing weekend news stories and f…, Performance can grind to a halt if overloaded, 14-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) touchscreen display. Does Acer’s new Chromebook 514 succeed in getting the job done? We were glad to see Acer equip the Chromebook 514 with a 14-inch Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS display that was sharp enough for anyone but the most devout pixel-peeper. Big touchpad. Geekbench 4 features a CPU (central processing unit) stress test, and can give you an idea of how fast any system will run. Sound quality wasn’t a huge detractor, but it’s not going to impress, either. Ideally, you want peak brightness of 300 nits. The Chromebook 514 looks a lot like… well, a modern clamshell laptop. Switching to our web browsing test, the Chromebook 514 went for almost 11.5 hours. The model I tested is priced at £370 and is absolutely fine for basic PC work, and the metal chassis means it’s resilient and doesn’t look like a cheap laptop. The build quality is a bit more of a standout, though, and in a good way. We never noticed the chassis getting anymore than slightly warm during even our most intensive uses. That compares to the Chromebook x2 and about nine and a half hours and the Chromebook Spin 15 that lasted for 11 hours. It managed just over 11.5 hours in this test, beating out the Chromebook 13’s nine hours and the Chromebook x2’s almost 10 hours. Learn More. It’s a good choice for anyone who doesn’t want to worry about plugging in throughout the day. In summary, while you can easily write, email, and crunch numbers on sheets on the Acer Chromebook 514, not all of the apps I tried to run worked. With such limited storage space, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be installing many apps on the Acer Chromebook 514 anyway. By comparison, a long-lasting Windows laptop, the XPS 13, lasted for close to four and three-quarter hours. You should be judicious with your tab use with the Chromebook 514 – I tend to have no fewer than 10 tabs open in Chrome at any one time (with one of those typically YouTube on autoplay), and found that, on occasion, when writing documents, everything would slow to a crawl for about five seconds before easing up again here. You can get faster performance for a little more money – such as the Chromebook x2’s Core m3 CPU for just a $100 premium — but the Pentium chip here suffices. For the money and given its excellent build quality and good battery life, the Chromebook 514 is a safe choice that’s unlikely to disappoint. But it runs fast enough for the usual Chrome OS tasks, it runs a long time on a single charge of the battery, and it’s rugged enough to carry around without worrying that it’s going to break down at the slightest provocation. It’s nicely priced and aimed primarily at buyers on a shoestring budget who want a laptop for word processing, spreadsheets, and the usual kind of PC tasks on the go. One of the two USB A and USB C ports on the Acer Chromebook 514. We use industry standard tests in order to compare features properly. You can wring a working day’s amount of power – i.e. Acer Chromebook 514. There’s nothing wrong with the aesthetic, mind you. The audio won’t keep up, though. A nicely priced laptop in a metal case that’ll do the basics (and only the basics). The 514 model I’ve been sent for review is the CB514-1HT model, which features an Intel Celeron N3350 processor, 4GB of RAM, and internal storage of just 32GB – only 21GB of which is available to the user. Finally, the model Acer provided for this review included a touch display, and we were glad to have it. The display was more than good enough for productivity work and Netflix binging. A dual-band Intel chipset provides 2×2 MU-MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 wireless connectivity. Acer equipped the Chromebook 514 with 45 watt-hours of battery capacity. Other Chromebooks that you might want to check out if you have a higher budget include the Google Pixelbook and Samsung Chromebook Pro. Some of the silver paint had come away, making me wonder what this will look like after a couple of years – probably not as bad as the LG Gram 2-in-1, but still. You’ll speed through any task you can throw at a Chrome OS laptop, but you’ll also spend considerably more at $800. Mids and highs were no better than adequate, and the bass was definitely lacking. It’s not unattractive, and it doesn’t stand out. With its metal chassis, the Acer Chromebook 514 looks more expensive than it actually is. You can get a configuration with a Celeron N3350, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage for just $350 – that’s a great price for such a solid build quality and a nice Full HD display. If you have to work away from a mains socket for a while, the good news is the Acer Chromebook 514 only takes about 90 minutes to fully charge up. If you can stand to dip the screen’s brightness below 150 nits then you can make it last even longer. If you're using an ad-blocker you might miss out on seeing the deals. Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks.Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.