One of the best Chromebooks you can buy is just $580 right now

When it comes to Chromebooks, the market has dictated our pricing categories a bit over the past few years to basically fall in a few ranges: affordable, mid-range, and “high end”. Things aren’t exactly the way they were before the pandemic, and I don’t know that we’ll go back. We now have sub-$300 affordable devices, $300-$700 mid-range devices, and high end that sit right around $700. But that ceiling – by popular demand – hasn’t gone far above the $699 mark in the past couple years apart from a couple specialized devices.

Sure, we had the $999 HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook launch about a year ago, but our readers made it clear that the ceiling even for a device as precision crafted as the Dragonfly should only be $800. While I fundamentally disagree with that and think the Dragonfly Pro is fairly priced for all you get and all it does well, that device clarified some things for Chromebook makers, and in this space, $700 is what we generally now consider the cap for “high end” Chromebooks.

Acer’s high-end Spin 714

And that brings me to the Spin 714 for 2023, the 3rd edition of Acer’s top-of-the-line Chromebook that has been iterated a few times over to arrive at the excellent device we have available right now. Sticking to that $699 price tag likely gets tough, but Acer has managed to cram a lot of great stuff in the latest Spin 713 that makes it a great purchase even at MSRP, and even more attractive when it goes on sale.

And that’s exactly what we’re seeing at the moment. Dropped by a full $120 right now, you can get your hands on this excellent Chromebook for just $579.99. While not the steepest discount we’ve ever seen on this device, I can’t stress to you how great of a deal this is in light of how great the Spin 714 is as a complete package.

With a solid, metal chassis, a 16:10 350+ nit screen, USI pen support, convertible form factor, 13th-gen Intel Core i5, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, this device gets nearly every part of the Chromebook equation right. The upward-firing speakers above the keyboard and the expertly-weighted hinge mechanism (one-finger lift on a convertible? Yes, please!) add to the overall feel of this well-crafted Chromebook and make an experience that is second to none at this price point. Seriously, find me a Windows laptop for $579.99 that looks this good and feels this great to use.

But you need to act fast. Acer knows what they have in this one, and for the time being, they somewhat stand alone at the top of the generally-available Chromebook heap. If you want a great device under $700, this is the one to go for as there’s no real competition at this particular level right now. It won’t stay discounted for long, so don’t miss it.