Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 gets an NPU: Hands on and first impressions

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Acer is upgrading one of its premium convertible Chromebooks with more AI prowess. Announced 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 neural processing unit (NPU) with up to 50 TOPS (or 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 comes with a free trial of Google AI Pro that unlocks 12 months of access to advanced AI tools like Veo 3 Fast and NotebookLM. 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, and teachers to create, work, and be productive from 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 it before its formal launch. I’ve only spent an afternoon with it so far, so I haven’t given 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 2-in-1 laptop.

Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 specs and availability

Acer sent me a Spin 514 (model number CP514-1HN-K6DY) with the following specs:

• MediaTek Kompanio 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

• Non-backlit keyboard

• Two USB-C ports and a headphone jack on the left side; two USB-A ports and a Kensington 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 5MP webcam. It’s priced at $699.99 and set to launch sometime later this month.

Acer started selling another configuration on its website for $799.99 on Sept. 4 (model number CP514-5HN-K4ZE). It comes with 16GB of RAM, a fingerprint reader, and a backlit keyboard, and its display has a higher 2.8K resolution but a lower 60Hz refresh rate.

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 weighs 2.7 pounds and measures 0.44 inches thin.) It’s certainly svelte and portable, even if it’s not the most thin-and-light laptop available.

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’t creak when I flip the display around into tent mode. The Spin 514’s lid can rotate a full 360 degrees to lay flat 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 accents on its hinges and the outer edges of its top cover, which match the iridescent “Acer” logo in the middle of the lid. Its Platinum Silver finish picks up fingerprints pretty easily, though.

The Spin 514’s keyboard cover is made from matte plastic, but it 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 itself 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 few fast-moving scenes in YouTube videos look silky smooth. (The Spin 514 isn’t technically 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’t seem blurry on my Spin 514, so without having tried its other configuration, I wouldn’t spend an extra $100 for a higher-res display with a worse refresh rate. Maybe consider upgrading if you desperately need the extra four gigs of RAM, but 12GB is already a lot for a Chromebook (and so is $700).

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 gets docked a few points for having a hollow-sounding space bar and lacking backlighting as well as a fingerprint reader. Again, 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 really does feel quite a lot like glass: It’s soft and smooth like velvet. 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 tried (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 while 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 couldn’t 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 Primate 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 notched 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 Acer Chromebook 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 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 smart grouping, I pulled up five tabs about the same topic (horseback 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 useful for multitaskers who keep a mishmash of websites and windows open at once.

Left:
Before and after smart-grouping 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 were 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 identical 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 still “experimental” (in beta) and may improve with time.

Battery life

I haven’t run 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-hour minimum we expect to squeeze from Chromebooks.

Who should get the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514?

Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

Based on my few hours with the Spin 514 so far, I think it’s a great pick for early AI adopters, but also just anyone who wants a solid budget 2-in-1 laptop with a premium design and good amount of power for the price. Its main rival is obviously the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, which offers a brighter (non-touch) OLED display, quad speakers with Dolby Atmos, and a backlit keyboard for $649.99, or $50 cheaper. However, it starts with half the storage and can’t double as a tablet.

The Spin 514’s battery life will be a big determining factor in my final analysis, so stay tuned.

UPDATE: Sep. 4, 2025, 1:05 p.m. EDT Listings for the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (CP514-5HN) are now live. Acer originally priced the upgraded model at $749.99, but it’s actually retailing for $799.99 on its website. We’ve updated this story accordingly.