This one was posted on the YouTube channel, thought I should share it here as there were comments in the forums for me to review it. It’s the revised Jumper EZBook 3, called the EZBook 3S, Gone is the Intel Celeron N3350 dual core, replaced with the N3450 quad-core (Much better for multicore performance). They also moved to 6GB of RAM like the EZBook 3 Pro and Chuwi Lapbook 12.3. The Toshiba eMMC 5.0 drive is gone, replaced with a 22mm x 80mm Foresee SSD with 520 reads and 520 writes (sequential) So greatly improved speeds here. The rest of the design is more or less exactly the same. We still have single band 2.4GhzWireless N (Realtek), the build is still all plastic, however, the keyboard has improved over the first EZBook 3 I reviewed while down in New Zealand. It’s no way near as bad as it was, the first batch was like a trampoline to type on this has greatly improved, but there still is a little bit of keyboard flex.
The thermals are good, Jumper since the EZBook 3 has used copper heatsinks on their Apollo Lake laptops so thermals are great. It doesn’t thermal throttle and gets to around 79 degrees C max.
So if you’re after an Apollo Lake laptop with 6GB and it already has an SSD, this is one of the better options. But it still has those cons like vertical viewing angles aren’t so great, only wireless N and the plastic build. This one will not be getting the full review treatment due to the fact it’s only a chipset upgrade and SSD.
And as you can see from the video thumb, Linux Manjaro does boot and work. I first thought the laptop was only in Chinese, it did boot in Chinese but later after 2 reboots, I have the OS all in English.
Peter
Hi, partly based on this review I ended up buying this laptop. I’m in China right now and I bought it here for around 1950 yuan which is something around 250 euros. It came with several accessories that I don’t really care about but in general I am liking it a lot. There are only two things I don’t like:
1) I am used to using mechanical keyboards (one is a Cherry brown), this is really not what I am used to. I barely can write in this thing. But this has happened to me in another more expensive laptops.
2) The charger seems to be always charging the battery, even when it says 100 percent, the light stays red or orange or whatever that color is and the Windows battery icon says 100% charging. So I’m afraid that this will fry the battery if I leave it always connected. Another problem is that when the computer is connected to the charger is makes faint but irritating electrical noises whenever one uses the SSD or even scrolling the page. Maybe it’s this charger that has a problem.
There is only one thing that I don’t agree with the review, when it says: ” It doesn’t thermal throttle and gets to around 79 degrees C max. ” That was not my experience. When I used OCCT it went above 80 degrees in about 2 seconds and throttled to around 1.4 GHz. You can see the temperature curves in SpeedFan in the images in the link below. The temps go down when I stop OCCT and then spike when I turn it on, and then plateau when throttle comes in.
It’s true that OCCT is a bit extreme but throttle also happened a second time, while I was watching a 4k HEVC movie and Windows was doing the upgrades at the same time. As I soon as I shut down the movie the temps dropped and the throttle disappeared. I have placed a few pics here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/9HWlNs5FgedoqTtq2
Regarding all the rest, yes, it was very easy to select English as the OS language, which was one of the reasons I bought this model. And another good thing is that the BIOS comes unlocked (as you can also see in the pictures), it is easy to configure passwords for start up and the SSD.
The laptop is fast and I’m really enjoying it. Although I do tend to write on the external keyboard and I’m not sure how I’ll deal with the charger problem.
Thanks for the review.
Peter
Ok, update: after more than a week of working an average of 8 hours a day with this laptop I can say that the screen is good if you don’t mind the vertical angle problem, it has high definition (dpi), it’s crisp, and it can really go very low on brightness (it’s possible to work in a complete dark room) and also very high (for outdoors). There’s no keyboard shortcut to change brightness directly, so I made a shortcut to “Windows Mobility Center” and keep it minimized, so it is very easy to adjust, not that different from having direct shortcuts.
The keyboard is not so bad, I think it is just a typical laptop keyboard, a bit hard to use, not comparable to my mechanical keyboards but I got used to it and now use it frequently.
One of the things I like the most is the battery duration, it lasts for a really long time, I never used it more than like 8 to 10 hours, but I think it never went bellow maybe 20 or 30%. I’m not sure, I just know I don’t have to worry about it. It lasts for more than I need and, even if the battery is low I can leave it on standby and not even worry about it. But, regarding the battery charging I found no solution so far. It never idles. It’s always either charging or discharging. For me this is really the worst part and it was getting me crazy, I was always checking if the charge was 100% to disconnected it from the mains plug, but now I just use it normally. The charger stays relatively cool when the battery oscillates between 99% and 100%, so it can’t be that bad for the battery. I don’t know, I try not to care anymore. I suppose it’ll last at least a couple of years…
Generally I am very happy about this laptop. I was just fine tuning a 2011 MacBook Pro from a friend of mine and I definitely prefer my cheap one. The ssd and bigger memory makes it much faster than the Mac (which uses a traditional hdd). The screen of the Mac does not have the vertical angle problem and of course the Mac keyboard is better, has no battery-charging problem, it’s made with better materials and so on. But I mean, to work with, the Jumper is much, much faster and the Jumper screen has a much higher resolution, it’s completely silent, doesn’t heat up as much, battery lasts longer, much lighter… it’s just better to work with and move around. My friend, who has the Mac, also said, I prefer yours! Yea, me too!
Peter
2nd update: Finally the problem with the battery seems to be solved, it idles and so far it has not gone back to charge it. I don’t know very well what changed, it coincided with a Windows Update driver called:
Initio – Bus controllers and ports – Initio default driver
Which apparently was released in May 2010 (info given by Windows Update) but was only installed yesterday. It might have just been a coincidence, because it still takes it an hour or more near 99% to get into idle mode. But once it gets there it stays there. The led goes from orange to white and I feel happier I don’t have to worry about the battery being in use all the time. I just use the hibernate option instead of sleep and it keeps itself in idle even after the night off.
I’m getting more used to the keyboard, although I really would like if it was backlit. Another thing I found was that when the bluetooth is on (for the mouse) the wifi speed drops to 3 to 5 MB/s. If I turn off the bluetooth it goes to at least 10 MB/s (maybe more but the router is connected through a 10MB lan, so I cannot tell).
In general I continue to be pretty happy about this laptop!
sportnok
$220 from Gearbest
http://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_622023.html
dlink377
I really like that bezel. Too bad the quality is not that great overall.
Chris, do you plan to review the new Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13″? The one with MX150 and fingerprint. I am wishing they fix the heat issue.
Chris G
Yes, I play to get one when I can get hold of one for an okay price.
Brad
Geekbuying has it for $199 says w/M.2 SSD but does not mention AC WiFi. Specs are often inaccurate.
http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Jumper-EZbook-3-Pro-Laptop-Gold-379934.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=EDM&utm_content=&utm_campaign=DMCAH_holiday_20170620
Chris G
It’s just wireless N, no AC on that one.
sportnok
Plus shipping, another $25 to $50.
Chris G
That too, Geekbuying seems to have dropped the free shipping.
Chris G
Oh wow, SF Express $56, 68 DHL to over $100 USD Fedex shipping cost from China to Spain for me. What the hell happened to their shipping pricing?