February 8 2014 note: I see this old post is newly popular. This is the original Mini 3 with a 1024 x 768 screen, not the Retina Mini 3.
March 5, 2014 note: For posts about the Retina-class iFive Mini 3, see: Retina-Class iFive Mini 3 Video Tour and the links at the end of that post. Use the Search box at right with “iFive” (no quotes) as the search term for the latest posts.
The much-delayed and over-hyped iFive Mini 3 gets its first review [Google English}.
Five Technology has hyped this as having superior workmanship than other iPad Mini clones as well as being both thinner and lighter.
Here we go with AnTuTu 4.0:
The Rockchip 3188 is still maxed-out at just 1.6GHz.
Despite that, this is the claimed AnTuTu score:
Which is stunning if it’s true. But this review never mentions the bad AC charger, so take that score in light of that serious omission.
Five ruins the tablet with its own skin over Android:
As far as the camera is concerned, a sample photo looks like this (click for very large):
Five technology’s fixation of creating the thinnest tablet had a bad side-effect: They could fit only a 1GB chip into this.
As if that strike against it wasn’t enough, this late in the iPad Mini clone game, they’ve priced it at 899 locally. This while first-generation iPad Mini clones have dropped as low as 699 locally.
I hope they didn’t build a lot of these.
Previously here:
iFive Mini 3: Unboxed, Bad AC Charger
iFive Mini 3 Unofficially Unboxed
iFive Mini 3 In Actual Photos
Chinese iPad Mini Clone Notes #11
iFive Mini 3 Crippled With 1GB Of RAM
iFive Mini 3 Finally Shown In Real Pictures
iFive Mini 3: Rockchip 3188 CPU
Chinese iPad Mini Clone Notes #10
Chinese iPad Mini Clone Notes #8
See also this recent English review at https://www.topnotchtablets.com/fnf-ifive-mini3-review-intro.
That’s a very interesting review. He certainly knows Chinese tablets. What he didn’t mention is that the screensnap icon in the iconbar goes away when in portrait orientation. Also, it’s significantly slower at loading some large games — I don’t know if that’s a firmware issue or if the RAM throughput is low. And it has just 1GB of RAM because of Five Technology’s thinness fetish — a double-layer 2GB chip could not be squeezed into so thin a design. Thanks for the link.
Funny, I am reading through your blog for info about the Mini3 Retina and I came across a link back to my review of the first Mini 3 :) – Small world!
Sorry, I think I got a bit grouchy in another reply I left on another post of yours about the Mini3 (the non-retina one). I have just really been impressed by FNF as their tablets are the first ones out of China I have had little -to- no problems with. PiPo tablets are unique and often well designed but they have QC issues and go cheap on some stuff at times so it can be hit-or-miss depending on which model you go with. Ainol… I have issues with Ainol as a company… FNF though was a breath of fresh air. No, I am sure they aren’t perfect but they seem to be a notch above the rest.
Regards and happy blogging!
Roman
I recently picked up an ifive mini 3. It’s pretty nice overall. It is super thin and light and actually feels well made. Sadly, metal back affects wifi performance. Another problem I noticed is the rather slow flash memory used in the tablet. When you are updating apps or an app is downloading content the tablet is pretty much unusable.
I am not sure about the Antutu scores since I’m scoring pretty high after running five tests: average 20006 (strange enough I see during the benchmark the CPU goes up to 1.6ghz but doing other CPU intensive task like software decoding a 1080p video, it never goes higher than 1.0-1.2ghz). I can force the tablet to go to 1.6ghz – no issues though.
It has the Rockchip 3188 so around 20,000 is the true score. There are several weak points in Chinese tablets, all different from brand to brand, and slow RAM is one of them.
Oh okay, I though the RK3188 scores around the 18000 range and not in the 20K. I tweaked the tablet to give smoother performance (changed CPU speed where lowest is 500mhz, changed i/o scheduler to noop and also installed a lagfix app) – so far so good. Much better than when I took it out of the box.
18,000 was the score before AnTuTu 4.x changed how it scored things. Now it’s the 20,000 range, just like the Intel Atom.
why making the screen bigger and reducing resolution compared to the mini2?
I don’t understand your question.
Hi,
Received the mini 3 about 10 days ago, everything is great!
Installed a rooted android 4.4.2, antutu 4.x score always over 20,000, tablet is very thin and light, back is a little slippery, so sprayed it with clear plasti dip.
Get about 10 hours of reading books on it. Very solid little tablet. Quite responsive.
Charges well. Screen is VERY bright.
For $166 us very happy….
That sounds good. You didn’t want to wait for the Retina version?
What is that retina all about?
A 2048 x 1536 hi-res screen, like the iPad Mini 2.