Pros
-
Good endurance -
Zippy performance -
Great port selection
Cons
-
More generic design
Key Features
-
Vast port selection
The Chromebook Plus 514 (2025)’s ports include USB-C, USB-A and HDMI to provide a good selection of connectivity options. -
Intel Core 3 100U processor
It also has a decent six-core Intel processor inside for zippy performance. -
12 hours of battery life
Our testing also puts this Acer Chromebook to provide all day battery life for when you need to get work done.
Introduction
The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) is this year’s refresh of the brand’s capable mid-ranger.
It sports an Intel Core 3 100U processor, plus 8GB of DDR5 RAM and 128GB UFS storage inside, alongside a respectable 14-inch 1920×1200 IPS screen and a solid 53Whr capacity cell. Of course, those specs might not set the world alight, but for a laptop that costs £399/$399, that isn’t the point.
It’s designed more in the classical Chromebook vein than more recent releases, such as the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus, by offering a reliable and functional device for getting work done. Competition is quite fierce here, though, including the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 and Lenovo IdeaPad 5i Chromebook.
Whether this Acer option can do enough to mark itself out as one of the best Chromebooks we’ve tested remains to be seen, though. I’ve been putting it through its paces to find out.
Design and Keyboard
- More generic looks
- Good port selection
- Tactile keyboard and slick trackpad
The overall look and feel of this 2025 refresh hasn’t changed much against the older Chromebook Plus 514 I looked at before, choosing function over form. If anything, it pushes even more to the side of function.
That’s largely because it features a solid grey chassis with little in the way of additional flair or flourish. It’s a well-made laptop with its metal frame contributing to a durable feel, although at 1.55kg, it is quite heavy for a 14-inch laptop.
The Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) is quite slender, so it packs into a bag without taking up too much space, and benefits from a far-reaching port selection. The left has a pair of USB-Cs, a USB-A and a headphone jack, while the right has a further USB-A and an HDMI port.
Inside, you’ll find a decent 65% layout keyboard with creature comforts such as a function row and arrow keys. It comes with tactile keys and a deeper travel that helps make productivity work a breeze. I quite enjoyed using it over the review period.
The Chromebook Plus 514 (2025)’s trackpad is also of a good size and provides your fingers with a good amount of real estate. It’s slick, accurate and responsive in use, too.
Display and Sound
- Solid resolution and screen size
- Decent brightness
- Meagre colours
This Acer Chromebook doesn’t necessarily spring any surprises on the screen front, opting to go for a 14-inch 1920×1200 IPS screen with a standard-issue 60Hz refresh rate. For the productivity use this laptop is designed for, it’s perfectly adequate.
It seems to get quite bright for punchy results indoors and outdoors, and black level and contrast are okay, if a little uninspiring. This panel lacks the depth of a higher-quality OLED, as found on more premium devices.
The colours are a bit flat to my eye, but for the office use this Chromebook is primarily going to be used for, I can give it a pass. You may want to look elsewhere if you want a device for more creative tasks.
When it comes to the speakers on the Chromebook Plus 514 (2025), these are in line with a lot of its contemporaries, producing a thin and tinnier sound not suitable for anything beyond casual listening.
Performance
- Solid power for productivity tasks
- Slick in daily use
- Meagre RAM and storage config
Acer’s line of Chromebook Plus 514 models can get a little confusing, depending on the retailer you visit, but my model has an Intel Core 3 100U processor inside, providing it with six cores (split unevenly between two Performance Cores and four Efficiency Cores) and eight threads, plus a boost clock of up to 4.7GHz.
For a humble Chromebook, that results in some decent performance in the Geekbench 6 test with good single and multi-core scores that make it well-suited to the more casual productivity workloads ChromeOS is associated with.
In use, I found the Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) to feel nippy and slick, and opening a few tabs for Google Docs, Spotify, Slack, and a couple of other work apps, didn’t seem to slow things at all.
I do bemoan the 8GB of RAM a smidgen here, given how ubiquitous 16GB is up and down the laptop price ladder, but it’s still okay for lighter loads. Likewise, the 128GB of storage is okay, considering a lot of your work is likely to be in the cloud, but just beware that it’s slower UFS storage against the more normal NVMe storage found in other laptops.
Software
- ChromeOS remains a lightweight OS
- Lots of software trickery with Chromebook Plus
As its name suggests, the Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) runs Google’s ChromeOS – the slick, lightweight OS that this category of laptop has been running for a long time now. There’s no bloatware to speak of, but you get convenient access to Google’s G-Suite of productivity apps by default, for instance.
What we’ve got here that is different, though, is that this Acer option is a Chromebook Plus model. This was a classification that Google introduced a couple of years ago for devices that could perform these tasks if they were equal to or above certain hardware requirements.
For instance, they should have at least a 12th-gen Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 7000 chip inside, as well as 8GB and 128GB of storage, Full HD IPS (or above) screen and a 1080p webcam.
Essentially, it means the Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) benefits from a range of quality-of-life features that come with each big update to the OS. For instance, the most recent one has added convenient features such as using facial movements instead of the mouse and keyboard, such as lifting your eyebrows to click or moving the cursor with your eyes. You can also use the Help Me Read feature to allow Google’s Gemini AI to help summarise the main points from any articles or documents you read.
Being a bang-up-to-date Chromebook also means we’re getting Google’s new Quick Insert key where the Caps Lock is, which opens a Spotlight Search style menu which can be used for everything from inserting a link to generating an image using AI.
You get other handy AI features such as Magic Eraser, Google’s clever Photo editing trickery that could previously be found on Pixel and later other Android phones. This automatically erases unwanted things from photos, working the same way on both devices. You select an image, and it recognises potentially unwanted items to remove by placing a white and grey outline around it. To remove it, you press done.
It’s very clever and works well, even on images where you need nothing removed. For instance, in a photo I took when I went to Scotland a few weeks ago, there were some unwanted people in the corner obstructing the view of the beach. I selected those people to be removed, and sure enough, the AI did a solid job of getting rid of them.
Other features that the Chromebook Plus software update has brought with it are more focused on a Chromebook being a useful device for productivity workloads including working with G-Suite apps and Google Meet. For instance, it offers Offline File Sync, which backs up files usually saved in the cloud to be saved on the device’s internal drive. This is hidden away in the settings menu a little, but is nonetheless useful for saving documents offline if you don’t have constant internet access.
In addition, the Chromebook Plus devices also benefit from some handy features for video conferencing, such as Live Translate which uses AI to translate any captions into a different language. It also works for YouTube videos, too. Google Meet also comes with similar convenient features as the Windows Studio effects on Copilot+ PCs, such as auto framing and rebalancing uneven lighting.
Battery Life
- Lasted for 12 hours in the battery test
- Capable of lasting for two working days
The Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) has a modest capacity 53Whr cell inside, although due to the low power consumption of the Core 3 100U processor, I imagine that’s where Acer has got the quoted 13 hours of endurance from.
In dialling the brightness down to approximately halfway, and running a 1080p YouTube video on loop, this Chromebook managed to last for 12 hours exactly before conking out. That’s some good efficiency, and a marked improvement over the ten and a half hours from last year’s model.
The small 65W USB-C charging brick provides brisk charging speeds too, taking just 26 minutes to get this laptop back to 50 percent, and 92 minutes to get it to full charge.
Should you buy it?
You want a good all-rounder
The Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) doesn’t necessarily put a foot wrong with solid power, a decent 14-inch screen for office work and great battery life.
You want more inspiring design
Where this Acer Chromebook isn’t as cutting-edge is with its design, and you can get slicker-looking and lighter devices, although you will pay more for the privilege.
Final Thoughts
The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) is a solid Chromebook with good power and fantastic endurance, as well as a tactile keyboard and good port selection. Its 14-inch screen is okay for office work, and it also comes with an enviable range of software trickery. However, its design isn’t the most inspiring.
The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus model is a little way up the road in price, and you get a dazzling OLED screen, more storage and even better battery life. For the modest £399/$399 price tag, I don’t have too many complaints for this budget Chromebook though, and if you are strapped for cash, this is definitely more than usable. For more options, check out our list of the best Chromebooks we’ve tested.
Trusted Score
How We Test
Every Chromebook we review goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge key things including build quality, performance, screen quality and battery life.
These include formal synthetic benchmarks and scripted tests, plus a series of real-world checks, such as how well it runs popular apps.
- We used as our main laptop for at least a week.
- Tested the performance via both benchmark tests and real-world use.
FAQs
The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) utilises an Intel Core 3 100U processor.
Test Data
| Acer Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) |
|---|
Full Specs
| Acer Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) Review | |
|---|---|
| UK RRP | £399 |
| USA RRP | $399 |
| CPU | Intel Core 3 100U |
| Manufacturer | Acer |
| Screen Size | 14 inches |
| Storage Capacity | 128GB |
| Front Camera | 1080p webcam |
| Battery | 53 Whr |
| Battery Hours | 12 00 |
| Size (Dimensions) | 327 x 225 x 20 MM |
| Weight | 1.55 KG |
| Operating System | ChromeOS |
| Release Date | 2025 |
| First Reviewed Date | 23/08/2025 |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1200 |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| Ports | 2x USB-C, 2x USB-A, 1x HDMI, 1x 3.5mm |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Colours | Grey |
| Display Technology | IPS |
| Screen Technology | IPS |
| Touch Screen | No |
| Convertible? | No |
Trusted Score
The post Acer Chromebook Plus 514 (2025) Review appeared first on Trusted Reviews.