Acer Chromebook Spin 714: The Premium Chromebook with a Beat | Media Pyro

Acer had one of the best Chromebooks available in 2021 with the Spin 713, and now that success has been repeated with the Chromebook Spin 714. The premium two-in-one doesn’t stray far from its predecessor from in terms of what it offers, but Acer made some changes to keep it competitive. And although Elite Dragonfly HP hip book A notch above the Spin 714 in design and features, the Acer is much better value and it also performed slightly better than the HP, which is why it won our Editors’ Choice award.

For the Spin 714, Acer moved from a 13.5-inch, 2,256 x 1,504-pixel touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio to a 14-inch, 1,920 x 1,200-pixel 16:10 touchscreen. It’s a lower resolution but this time with 100% sRGB color gamut coverage. The display is reasonably bright, too, although you’ll still be fighting outdoor reflections.

While I prefer the 3:2 aspect ratio for productivity and style use, the 714’s display still gives you more vertical space to work with compared to a 16:9 widescreen, and feels more balanced overall, slipping into a backpack more easy. And for those who want to use this to take notes, sketch a floor plan or use it as a digital whiteboard, Acer has placed a sleek USI style under the front-left edge of this Chromebook.

The Spin 714 is aimed at hybrid workers, students and teachers and anyone looking for a more powerful Chromebook for productivity. So, it’s not the most interesting design, but it’s more solidly built than less expensive models. The display is covered with antimicrobial Gorilla Glass for added durability and the reinforced aluminum body is Mil-Spec tested (MIL-STD-810H) for protection from minor drops, vibrations, rain, dust, high and low temperatures and humidity. The reinforced body may be at least partially responsible for its 3-pound weight, which is only heavy compared to smaller, less expensive Chromebooks.

The configuration I tested is currently the only model available and It is priced at $729 but is regularly discounted. It’s not yet available in the UK or Australia, but the price varies around £640 or AU$1,090. When it launched in May, Acer said it expected a higher end configuration with up to an Intel Core i7-1260P, up to 16GB of RAM and up to a 512GB PCIe NVMe Gen 4 SSD but that’s not the case. still available. . For most users, however, the configuration I tested will be more than enough.

The Acer Chromebook Spin 714 has been verified by Intel Evo, which means that it meets certain standards regarding performance, battery life (up to 10 hours in this case), responsiveness, and wireless and wired connections, among other things . The Spin 714 showed no signs of slowing down under regular productivity use — Microsoft Office PWAs, Chrome, Slack, basic photo editing with Photoshop Express — as well as entertainment like cloud and Android gaming and video streaming. Battery life on our streaming video test was also great, lasting 13 hours, 38 minutes.

Rounding out the top-flight features are Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, dual Thunderbolt 4 ports (one on each side for charging and convenient docking), a comfortable backlit keyboard and a full HD webcam with privacy shutter. The webcam and speakers are much better than you’d find on a typical Chromebook, so if you spend a lot of time on Zoom, Teams and Meet, you’ll be happy with what’s built in here. And the fans remained whisper-quiet, even under load. The only real disappointment is the touchpad and that is simply because of its size. It works fine, but it is oddly small.

Currently, the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 is one of the best productivity Chromebooks available. It might be a little buttoned up as far as the overall design goes, but it’s made for durability. Otherwise, you’re getting great performance and battery life, a good display, a dockable stylus and strong connectivity and conferencing features. It is even available at a reasonable price if you find it on sale. But not everyone needs to have all this in a Chromebook, and we have more affordable options list of the best Chromebooks. That includes Acer Chromebook 513 spinwhich is a fanless version of the Spin 713 with the same 13.5-inch, 2,256 x 1,504-pixel touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio.