ISSUE 381|COMPUTER SHOPPER|NOVEMBER 2019 27
THESEDAYS,THEREare two types of
Chromebooks: the original concept of
simple laptops that are cheap to
produce and cheap to buy; and
the more recent, more powerful
premium Chomebooks, embodied by
Google’s own Pixelbook (Shopper368).
The Acer Chromebook 514 is the first we’ve
seen to take athird approach, aiming to
occupythe space in between.
How does Acer square that circle?
Essentially,byputting basic innards into
achassis with elegant looks, plus some
nice little extras, aiming forastylish and
feature-rich Chromebook that won’t break
the bank. To that end, a1.1GHz dual-core
Intel Celeron N3350 processor is paired with
4GB of RAM, and pitted with a14in, Full HD
touchscreen, ametal frame,aGorilla
Glass-topped touchpad and backlit keys.
If anything, it looks more MacBook than
Chromebook. Together with Chrome OS’s
more limited functionality,Acer will be
hoping that you won’t notice that athree-
year-old CPU is running the show.
SHELL GAME
Forthe most part, admittedly,itworks.
The aluminium chassis is very stylish when
closed, and it’s reasonably lightweight at
1.5kg. When opened, things get abit more
utilitarian, with sharp angles and quitewide
bezels topand tailing the screen, although
the ones to the side are impressively narrow,
measuring just afew millimetres.
Youalso won’t have any trouble setting
the screen at acomfortable angle,asitdips
all the wayback to be completely flush with
the keyboard. It’s apity it doesn’t go the full
360° to become aconvertible,given the
touchscreen, but it’s still impressively flexible.
That flexibility continues intoits
connectivity,too,with arespectable range
ACER Chromebook514
★★★★★
£350•From http://www.amazon.co.uk
CHROME OS LAPTOP
of ports. Like the larger Chromebook 315
(opposite), it has two USB Type-C ports –with
one used forcharging –two USB3 ports, a
microSD card slot, a3.5mm headphone jack
and aKensington lock slot.
It’s not all good news, however.While the
Chromebook 514 is reasonably attractive to
look at, it has some annoyingly sharp edges,
especially on the underside.Itcould definitely
snag on your clothes if you’re not careful
when using it on your lap.BETTER BUTTONS
Still, the Chromebook 514 succeeds where its
peers fail, specifically in its keyboard. This is
firm and responsive,offering just the right
amount of give on the keys, feeling somewhat
reminiscent of the MacBook Pros of old. It’s
also backlit in amanner that’s faint but
noticeable in lower light –just what you need
from abacklight, in other words.
It’s also areliefthat, unlike with the Acer
Chromebook 315, we didn’t experience any
missed spacebar presses. This feels like a
quality keyboard that won’t let you down.
The touchpad is equally pleasing, and Acer
has coated it with Corning Gorilla Glass to give
it asmoother feel than regular plastic pads.
Again, this feels MacBook-like,with gesture
controls working without ahitch, and just
the right amount of resistance to clicks.
Things begin to go atouch awry with the
screen. It’s a1,920x1,080-resolution
touchscreen that does the job,but it’s far
from the best we’ve seen.
To be fair,it’s better than that of the
Chromebook 315, with amore acceptable
885:1 contrast ratio and amoderately
higher peak brightness of 272cd/m^2 ,
not to mention the visibly sharper
resolution. Still, as it only covers
57% of the sRGB colour gamut,
the screen is on the dull side,
and you’ll struggle to use it
in bright sunlight.
Again, however,it’s all decent
enough forthe low price.Stick to the
Chromebook 514’s intended purposes –typing awayinGoogle Docs, filling in
spreadsheets, internet shopping and light
YouTube browsing –and this laptop feels
absolutely fine,with no hints that its
internals are as dated as theyare.
Youmight have to keep the number of
tabs down, however,asinthe WebGL
Aquarium benchmark it only scored 14fps
on the 5,000-fish setting. Battery lifecould
also be alot better: the Chromebook 514
lasted ameagre 5h 11m in our video test,
even less than the Chromebook 315.
We will say, however,that it seems to do a
lot better with less intensive tasks. Based on
our experience,ifyou stick to browsing and
creating documents, you could squeeze
around seven hours of lifeout of it.SQUEEZED MIDDLE
Ultimately,the Chromebook 514 isn’t aperfect
balance between Chromebook affordability
and premium design, which puts it in a
difficult position. It’s more expensive than
most basic Chromebooks, and doesn’t have
the performance or displayquality of atrue
premium model. Having aprocessor this old
in a2019 product seems particularly mean.
However,the Chromebook 514 is afar
more usable Chrome OS laptop than the
Chromebook 315, and all things considered,
it’s still cheap enough to be adecent choice.
AlanMartinVERDICT
TheChromebook514looksthepart,evenifit
hasaweakscreenandanoldCPU
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSORDual-core1.1GHzIntelCeleronN3350•
RAM4GB•DIMENSIONS323x232x17mm•WEIGHT
1.5kg•SCREENSIZE14in•SCREENRESOLUTION
1,920x1,080•GRAPHICSADAPTORIntelHDGraphics500•
TOTALSTORAGE32GBeMMC•OPERATINGSYSTEM
ChromeOS•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•
DETAILSwww.acer.com•PARTCODECB514-1HTWindowsoverall
Multitasking
Batterylife
0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100
Seepage94forperformancedetails5h11m