What is odd is seeing this defect show up on a device advertising a Gorilla Glass trackpad. We see it all the time on cheap Chromebooks, so it isn’t odd. Then there is the click of the actual mechanism, resulting in almost a double-click every time you depress the trackpad. This gives you a tangible and audible click. With this defect, you can push the trackpad down just a bit and feel a slight click as the surface actually meets the button beneath it. With the glass surface, all my gestures and pointer tracking were perfect, but the minute I went to actually depress the glass I was met with the budget device defect of the trackpad hovering just above the actual click mechanism. The trackpad was equally frustrating and poorly built. While I love backlit keyboards, I’d gladly take one I can confidently type on with no backlighting over one I can see in the dark and still not know whether or not I’ve hit the key I’m trying for. Many times I was left unsure on whether or not I’d actually hit the key I was going for and that is just an inexcusable deficiency. The keyboard has backlighting, but the keys are soft, mushy and lack any real and discernible click response. There’s nothing about the form of this Chromebook that makes me feel good about it on a table or in my hand, and I’m really sad about that. It just doesn’t inspire anything out of me at all. It is just over 3 pounds and right around 3/4-inch thick, so the size is definitely workable and portable.

On the plus side, it isn’t creaky or flimsy.

Add to this the plastic surround around the screen and you take what could have been a great build and turn it into an odd, almost-cheap feeling one. When you hold it, you don’t feel confidence in the build quality. The seams don’t quite come together as you’d expect and the edges literally feel sharp enough to cut vegetables with. Sure, it is all aluminum, but it doesn’t feel high quality. What you actually get here, on the other hand, is just not up to those standards.

When we think of all-aluminum builds, devices like the Lenovo Yoga Chromebook C630, Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14 or the Google Pixelbook come to mind. It isn’t ugly, it isn’t the best looking device ever made it is just OK. I would describe the overall build quality of the Acer Chromebook 514 as middling.

Acer 514 14 chromebook review