Jumper EZBook 3 Pro
£192 inc VAT from fave.co/2werE3z
If you’re looking for a decent-size yet portable Windows 10 laptop on a budget, the Jumper EZBook 3 Pro may impress.
Available from GearBest for just £192.10 you’d be hard pressed to find better value for money in a laptop of this size. You will need to additionally factor in import duty, however, which is calculated at 20 percent of the value on the shipping paperwork, plus an admin fee of around £11.
In return for your money you get a aluminium laptop with a 13.3in full-HD screen, running the Intel Apollo Lake N3450 quad-core processor with 6GB of RAM and
64GB of storage (you can add more if required via an M.2 SSD or SD slot). There’s dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 support, plus two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI output and a headphone jack.
This is a very similar spec to that offered by the Chuwi LapBook 14.1, another Chinese budget laptop with the same processor and storage setup, plus a slightly larger screen, but a plastic chassis and just 4GB of RAM. The two are currently available at exactly the same price from GearBest (the Chuwi is available at fave.co/2welJLX priced £189).
The EZBook’s keyboard and trackpad are of a good size and responsive, with software preinstalled that lets you block accidental taps while typing. The wellspaced Scrabble-tile keys are full-size and accurate in use, though there’s no room for a number pad or any hot keys, as you might expect. Neither is there any backlighting, but clear white labelling on jet black tiles helps the characters to stand out.
A drawback is that this is a US keyboard, and a UK version is not available as an option. It’s easy enough to configure Windows to use a UK layout, though you will need to remember that certain functions won’t tally up with their button legends.
At 1.4kg the EZBook 3 Pro is light enough for a life on the road, though its screen is not especially bright (we measured a maximum 154cd/m2) which could make outdoor working difficult in bright sunshine. It is a matt panel, though, which should help.
This is a 13.3in IPS display, which affords realistic colours and strong viewing angles. The screen can be laid back reasonably far, so using it on a lap shouldn’t
present any problems. The full-HD resolution of 1920x1080 pixels makes for sharp text and images, too.
We like the reasonably thin screen bezels, with Jumper making the best use of the space available inside the chassis. Above the screen sits a 2Mp webcam, which is enough for video chat. This protrudes from the chassis, which doesn’t look great but prevents the screen coming into contact with the keys.
With the lid closed the laptop does little to betray its budget roots, with a silver metal chassis that has rounded corners and a chiselled chrome-effect edge. We’re less keen on the plastic hinge, the rear speaker grilles that might fire sound into the desk or your lap, and the four oversized rubber feet, though they do at least hold it stable on a desk.
Our only real complaint with the design is that there is no obvious taper toward the front, and several times we found ourselves trying to open the EZBook’s lid from the rear. The Jumper logo printed atop the lid doesn’t
Performance
really help here, given that it is the right way around when the lid is opened and not before. With an Apollo Lake N3450 processor and 6GB of DDR3 RAM inside, the Jumper is capable for daily computing tasks but it’s no powerhouse.
Performance is very much on par with the LapBook 14.1, with which it shares the same processor but has an additional 2GB of RAM. However, unlike that laptop, we weren’t impressed with the Jumper’s startup time. While the LapBook 14.1 starts up in mere seconds, for this Jumper you’ll be waiting closer to a minute.
We ran the EZBook 3 Pro and the Chuwi through a series of benchmarks. In PCMark 8 we recorded 1440
points (conventional), and in Geekbench 4 4305 points (1424 single-core). By comparison the LapBook turned in 1411 points in PCMark 8 and 3664 in Geekbench 4 (1327 single-core).
For graphics performance we use GFXBench, and the Jumper turned in playable frame rates not far off those of the Chuwi in T-Rex (32fps vs 28fps) and Manhattan (15fps vs 13fps). We also recorded 12fps in Manhattan 3.1 (10fps for the Chuwi) and 7fps in Car Chase (also 7ps for Chuwi).
Battery life isn’t outstanding, with the lithiumpolymer non-removable battery enduring 6 hours 15 minutes of our testing, in which we continually loop a video at 120cd/m2. It won’t get you through a full working day, but it’s also not a huge shock at this price.
In common with the Chuwi a proprietary charger is required to refill the battery via a DC jack on the laptop’s right edge.
Verdict
Available at the same price as the Chuwi LapBook 14.1 but with a metal shell and slightly faster performance (though significantly slower startup times) the EZBook 3 Pro is a great budget buy. It’s capable for day-to-day computing tasks and low-intensity gaming, and does a good job of balancing portability with a usable size screen. You get just 64GB of storage, though this can be expanded.
Specifications
• 13.3in full-HD (1920x1080) 16:9 IPS display
• Windows 10 Home 64-bit
• 1.1- to 2.2GHz Intel Apollo Lake N3450 quad-core
• Intel HD500 Graphics
• 6GB DDR3 RAM
• 64GB eMMC storage plus SD support up to 128GB (M.2 SSD expansion possible)
• Dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 4.0
• 2x USB 3.0
• 1x HDMI
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• 2Mp webcam
• DC charging jack
• 9,600mAh lithium-polymer battery
• 315x209x15mm
• 1.4kg