Acer Spin 3: A solid $650 budget laptop with nice bonuses
Budget laptops continue to improve, and the Acer Spin 3 is a good example. For an affordable price it offers adequate components and battery life, with enough flexibility to accommodate a range of peripherals. Though the 14-inch, 360-degree convertible laptop delivers middling performance, a modern Thunderbolt port and a nifty integrated stylus stand out. In all, it’s a solid laptop, but in a market whose competition is growing stronger, quickly.
BASIC FEATURES
The Acer Spin 3 (SP314-54N-58Q7) we tested is sold at Costco for $650, although the company lists a few alternatives on its Acer online store. Of the four listed, only one, the SP314-54N-50W3, contains an up-to-date Core i5-1035G4 processor as well as a larger 512GB SSD, for about $150 more. (Intel’s 10th-gen “Ice Lake” processors use the number attached to its “G” suffix to indicate the relative graphics performance, with a higher number being better.) We still consider our review unit’s loadout—8GB RAM, 256GB SSD—adequate for most needs.
Here are the basic features of our review unit, which is backed by a one-year “International Travelers’ Warranty.” Acer says that warranty runs concurrently with its standard one-year U.S. warranty, allowing the laptop to be serviced in up to 30 other countries where Acer has authorized facilities.
Display: 14-inch IPS (1920x1080)
Processor: 1GHz Core i5-1035G1
Graphics: UHD Graphics
Memory: 8GB LPDDR4
Storage: 256GB NVMe SSD
USB-C (Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 Gen 2). 2 USB-A (USB 3.2
