Acer Spin 3 SP314-21N: No active stylus with the 2-in-1 laptop

A Ryzen 3-3250U APU, 8 GB of onboard working memory in dual-channel mode, and a 256-GB NVMe SSD (M.2-2280) equip the convertible for office and Internet operation. A positive point is that the laptop produces only little noise overall and hardly warms up.

The built-in APU is not designed for gaming. It can only handle games with very moderate demands on the hardware or that are already a few years old. It achieves smooth frame rates only at low resolutions and low quality settings.

While the battery life is okay overall, it will not inspire much enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the available USB-C connection (USB 3.2 Gen 2) supports neither DisplayPort-via-USB-C nor Power Delivery. This means that the convertible cannot be charged using an universal USB-C charger and you would always have to bring the proprietary HP power supply.

The touchscreen display (FHD, IPS) is not very impressive overall. The brightness, contrast, and color space coverage turn out too low, and there is also a reflective surface. The color reproduction can be called very decent. The touchscreen can be operated with the fingers as well as with an active input pen.

The active stylus that is available with some models of the Spin 3 series is not included in the configuration model that we have here. While you could purchase the pen separately, you would not be able to insert it into the case slot that is meant for it, since that is closed by a cover. There is also no charging connection for the pen.

You can find additional information and many benchmark results in our review of the Acer Spin 3 SP314-21N-R4GU.