Samsung has opted for an all-plastic construction. This means that the entire chassis, keyboard, and even the trackpad are made of plastic. If you’ve ever used a metal laptop, you can’t help but feel that this Samsung laptop is quite cheap in comparison. Considering the price of this Chromebook, though, that is entirely understandable. The bigger problem, at least in terms of looks, is the chunky bezel under the screen: the 12.4-inch screen is surrounded by a huge black bar that looks really outdated in an era when laptop makers are trying to push bezels out of existence; the Surface Laptop Even the Go 2 doesn’t look this ugly.
Most 2-in-1 convertible Chromebooks don’t work particularly well as tablets. They are usually heavy, bulky, have large bezels, and their HD screens don’t hold up to close-up use. The Galaxy Chromebook 2 360, however, is nearly perfect. When folded flat on the bottom against the back of the screen, it feels well-balanced, although it is still a very meaty tablet at about 18 mm thick and 1.28 kg in weight. The bottom bezel is a bit large, but the display looks quite good and responds well to taps and gestures.
Samsung makes the most of the space available on the keyboard, and while I would have liked a slightly wider left shift key, there is little to complain about in terms of key size, spacing, or layout. The key action is a bit jarring when tapping downwards, but that’s not a problem if you’re not used to it. I’ve typed on better keyboards, but I’ve also used worse ones.
The Acer Chromebook Spin 714 is the best of the 2023 Chromebooks we tested. It’s full-featured with a fast 12th generation Intel Core i5 processor and built to last. If you are looking for a Chromebook to use as your one and only computing device, this is a great choice. It is more expensive than the average Chromebook, but is regularly on sale. If you want to spend less, consider the 17-inch Acer Chromebook 317, or if mobility is a concern, consider Lenovo’s Duet Chromebook. Considering that most modern laptops last about 10 hours on a single charge, this result seemed low to me. So I did another battery test, setting it to loop YouTube videos until the battery was completely depleted. This time it was 6 hours. A little better, but still a very poor result.