Not every day that you have the luxury of spending around £1,000 on a laptop, and if looking for a budget laptop, the sheer number of options available can be confusing. With the Jumper EZbook S5, you get something with a flashy and lightweight design for very little money. It has a design that looks like it came off Dell or Apple’s assembly line, but with a far, far more affordable price tag.
Jumper isn’t a particularly large brand, but the Chinese company is beginning to gain popularity with more and more people beginning to get curious about their devices. The firms generally seem to make tech that at least looks premium, with the budget-conscious folk in mind.
The EZbook S5 is one of the latest releases, and it comes to succeed some of the company’s devices – including the EZBook 3 Pro, EZBook 2, EZpad 6 Plus, and the EZpad 5S – which have received reasonably decent reviews in the past.
With the low price point, the compromise, of course, is performance, but if you’re a student or looking to buy an entry-level experience for your kid’s homework assignment, the Jumper EZbook S5 might be a great buy for you.
Jumper EZbook S5 Review: Design and Features
The exterior is made from a plastic body but has quite a premium feel. I just like the color of this laptop, that gray is the same you find on the Dell XPS 13, a nice shade that looks professional and refined, without being the usual silver or black. This is the only color option that the laptop comes in.
At 17.6mm thick and 1.2kg in weight, this laptop is incredibly portable. You can slide it into a backpack with ease and it won’t boggle you down on daily commute. This is pretty unusual in the budget space, so if you’re looking for something slim, this is one to consider. The folding mechanism is a little flimsy, especially when you lift the laptop up, the screen tends to sometimes flip back slightly.
The 1080p screen is bright and vibrant and is attached by a single hinge that allows it to fold back by 180 degrees, a trend on most laptops that’s hard-to-find use for. It’s an IPS FHD 14in display with an 89% screen-to-body ratio thanks to the narrow bezels. The colors are bright and have good contrast, making it a fine choice for streaming Netflix and watching YouTube.
Viewing angles are pretty good, but you do experience some screen glare if viewed under direct sunlight. Nonetheless, many budget laptops come with poor screens, so it’s good to see a good one on the Jumper EZbook S5.
The keyboard feels rather cheap, but it isn’t bad at this price point. And, like most 14in laptops, the keyboard is fairly small but the keys are well spaced and have good feedback. Below the keyboard is a large touchpad that is fast and responsive, so you don’t need an external mouse here.
Port selection I decent, but we wish Jumper included a USB Type-C port here. You get two USB-A ports (2.0 and 3.0), a mini-HDMI port, a microSD card slot, a headphone jack, and a DC port for charging. If you’re buying the EZbook S5 for Zoom calls, there’s a webcam and a built-in microphone, as well as a pair of speakers on the bottom.
Jumper EZbook S5 Review: Performance
The Jumper EZbook S5 is a budget laptop, so you shouldn’t be expecting anything massively powerful when it comes to performance. Under the hood, it runs on the Intel Celeron N3350 (Gemini Lake) processor, a chip only seen in budget notebooks. This is paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage. This is the only spec option you can currently get. However, the SSD slot supports up to 1TB of expandable memory should you need more.
With those specs, it’s clear that the EZbook S5 is a laptop designed with a very specific consumer in mind, running on components that were designed for specific consumers. Its performance is particularly impressive on day-to-day tasks, like Netflix, and most websites run with ease on Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome. Office tools like Word, PowerPoint, and the like don’t struggle at all.
However, when you try to move up to things like Adobe Photoshop or even higher, let’s say Premiere Pro, you realize you’ve hit the limits of what this notebook can handle. The same can be said of gaming, too.
The Intel Graphics HD 500 combined with 12GB of RAM and the Celeron processor can run some short work of many older, less-intensive gaming titles on Steam as well. Don’t attempt to run Cyberpunk 2077 or any modern game on this thing. It struggles with even Minecraft and World of Warcraft.
Battery life is largely acceptable, lasting around 6:42 over continuous surfing the web at 150-nits screen brightness. That’s a little below Jumper’s quoted 8 hours, but is still enough to last a day at work or school, and most people using Windows 11’s battery-saving features can push that juice up to around 7:30 hours.
Should you buy the Jumper EZbook S5?
For the vast majority of people looking for a beautiful, affordable, and portable laptop, the Jumper EZbook S5 is a perfect choice. It’s surprisingly capable of things like web browsing, Office, webmail, and beyond. The experience offers a few compromises when it comes to more intensive tasks, but for college students looking to save money, or someone looking to buy their kid a basic daily-use laptop, this is truly one great option.
However, it’s not something you should consider if you need a powerful device whilst traveling, due to its poor battery life and average components. For the business traveler, who needs something portable, powerful, and long-lasting, the Dell XPS 13 Plus is an excellent laptop that checks all those boxes. You’ll spend a lot more for the XPS 13, but it packs the kind of performance and longevity to justify the high asking price.
However, if all you need is something akin to a netbook with a great design and costs much less, the Jumper EZbook S5 is exactly that. Consider what your priorities are – and whether the EZbook S5’s positives are enough of a draw to overlook its few downfalls.
Recommended Configuration
Lenovo IdeaPad 3i 15 Inch Full HD Laptop - (Intel Core i3-1115G4, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD Storage, Windows 10 Home in S mode) - Abyss Blue
The Review
Jumper EZbook S5
The Jumper EZbook S5 is one laptop that truly looks great, and provides a great experience for streaming, browsing the web, and typing documents, but struggles with more intensive tasks. If shopping on a tight budget for a well-built laptop, you should give it a look.
PROS
- Looks great
- Lightweight and ergonomic
- Decent key travel and trackpad
CONS
- No USB Type-C
- Intel Celeron performance isn't the best
Review Breakdown
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EDITORS RATING
