Jumper really stepped up their game this year with the EZbook 3 Pro, It got a glowing review for its a decent keyboard, screen, great build quality and good performance. It was also one of the first with 6GB of RAM instead of the more common 4GB. However, there was one area I was disappointed. It had Wireless N and not wireless AC like other Apollo Lake laptops and tablets. So it was rated down on this.
Fast forward a few months and Jumper updated the EZBook 3 Pro with Intel wireless AC 3165, dual antennas and much better range and speeds. It did come however at the cost of that fast Toshiba eMMC 5.0 spec drive. It now has a cheap BWIN eMMC with much slower speeds. Personally, it doesn’t bother me too much since there is an SSD slot in the laptop so adding a larger and faster SSD is something I recommend to do anyway.
First impressions:
- The build is exactly the same as the Version 2 model. (Very good, full metal body and 13mm thin)
- The device manager lists an NCard as the drive. It’s really a BWIN eMMC 4.5.
- Speeds are poor, 60 MB/s reads and 40 writes. However, it doesn’t seem to affect Windows performance too much.
- The SATA3 M.2 2242 slot works at full speeds. My Transcend gets 550 MB/s reads and 400 MB/s write speeds.
- Touchpad seems about the same, poor at two finger scrolling. But disabling that touchpad-blocker software seems to improve things.
- USB 3.0 ports work at full speeds and can power external hard drives. (No change)
- The MicroSD slot is still USB 2.0 spec. Use a USB 3 reader to get fast performance.
- The screen is the same IPS panel as version 1 and 2. A bit on the cooler white side. But overall a decent 1080p IPS. You can calibrate the screen to be more neutral or warm white using software. That’s not hard.
- Intel Wireless-AC 3165 range is good and the speeds are excellent. I can now get the full 300mbps upload and download speeds my fiber optic line provides. I’m no longer limited to 50Mbps like the Wireless N model (Version 1 & 2)
- Thermals are good, it barely gets warm thanks to the copper heatsink inside.
Overall this is the best Apollo Lake notebook reviewed so far. Great build, good Windows performance and all for $219 which a few of us managed to get on the flash sale. Now its cheapest is $229 with coupon BOOKPRO here at Gearbest. Even at this price, it’s still cheaper than the Chuwi Lapbook 12.3 and Lapbook 14.1. My rating of this laptop has been updated to reflect the new Wireless AC model here, and also the change in eMMC to the slower BWIN brand one.