I used to love Chromebooks, to the point where my main laptop was a Chromebook for a few years. But lately, it’s felt more and more like the platform has been struggling to retain relevance, and the latest Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 – besides being a mouthful – basically paints a perfect picture of that.
ChromeOS as a whole is in flux at the moment, with the future outlook constantly changing. Technically speaking, as our Abner Li brought out, Chromebooks are better today than they’ve ever been. It’s full of new features and has built out a relatively compelling platform for web apps and for AI, all while an Android base looms in its future. But the hardware, as of late, feels both uninspired and not particularly compelling.
The new Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 really cemented that for me again.
In a brief hands-on at IFA 2025, I got to try out the machine. It feels snappy on top of MediaTek’s Kompanio Ultra chipset, and the display is rather good as well. According to The Verge which has had a unit for a while now, the battery life is also pretty solid.
Top comment by Ryan Lounsbury
The entire Chromebook world feels like it was put on pause. The only notable new Chromebooks for 2025 are the two Kompanio devices from Lenovo & Acer. Both of those devices are clearly slotted into the middle-tier of the Chromebook range.
I was really hoping with the Snapdragon X series finding success with Windows devices that we would see it on the ChromeOS side. I'm a bit surprised that we aren't seeing premium class devices running the Snapdragon X chips yet.
I know a number of baseboards for MediaTek chips have been unearthed all with Star Wars names. There are 8 in total per ChromeUnboxed as part of the 'Skywalker' family.
But as someone that actually likes using Chromebooks I really do want to see at least one premium option from the major players (HP, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Samsung). It doesn't appear any Snapdragon based devices are in development so hopefully some of these unannounced MediaTek based devices hit a more premium note.
Not lost in this drought of new hardware released is the tech stack re-org of ChromeOS to Android. It is plausible that new Chromebooks will be few and far between until the migration is complete. But it doesn't appear that Google is in any real hurry to finish that project either.
The hardware, though, felt largely mediocre to me. The chassis is metal, but it feels like plastic with a good amount of flex and lacks the premium touch that most metal laptops evoke. The keyboard is fine, and the trackpad feels decent too, but it’s all very average. Especially for a Chromebook that costs $700. And Acer’s not alone here. I have very similar feelings about Lenovo’s latest release as well, which I’ve been using on and off for the past few weeks.
To me, these premium Chromebooks remain largely an oxymoron. ChromeOS thrives when it’s offering a better experience than Windows for less money, but the advancements in hardware on Windows, and even more so on macOS, make buying a generation or two old “proper” laptop a lot more compelling, or just saving up a couple hundred extra dollars for a new machine.
What do you think? Have you used one of these high-end Chromebooks?
More on ChromeOS:
- Google ending Steam for Chromebook support in 2026
- Google specifies how it will be the ‘ChromeOS experience on top of Android’
- Chromebook Plus getting its own Circle to Search with more actions
Follow Ben: Twitter/X, Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments