Submitted by nbeam85 on
Most Chinese brand electronics, are notorious for poor designs, shoddy build quality, and low prices. Enter FNF... I have read some of their literature and seen some of their advertisements in the past. The particularly push the fact that they "engineer" their designs to be more durable and tough while still remaining lightweight and thin. That is highly a-typical based on, as noted, what we have seen from this market segment. This company makes products that are distinctly different (read "better").
The past two weeks I have had the distinct pleasure of testing two different models from FNF, the iFive Mini 3 and the high-end X2. This article focuses on the former.
The first thing I noted was that the packaging on both FNF tablets was very nice and well done. PiPo also does an excellent job with presentation of the devices it sells however depending on the model some of them are pretty low quality and others are quite excellent. Point one for the Mini 3.
I immediately pulled the tablet from the package and I am fairly certain my jaw dropped a bit. FNF has taken Chinese tablet design, perhaps Android tablet design overall... to a whole new level. The iFive Mini 3 is the epitome of minimalist industrial/technical design. It hearkens very much so to an IMPROVED iPad Mini design. Yes, I said improved... As in this design is a better/nicer design than an iPad mini. This is the first time I have ever held a China tab (or for that matter any piece of non-Apple mobile electronics) and thought, this is > than the Apple i-fill-in-the-blank. I don't believe this is just me waxing poetic here either. I know I throw some pretty strong language around when I praise devices. In the past, I have been thrilled with the designs of the Teclast P88HD, and PiPo M8 Pro. Both of which are phenomenal devices. The Teclast P88HD Dual-Core generation was a "solid" device that felt good and looked decent. The M8 Pro was, and still is, one of my favorite designs out of China and it was an evolutionary improvement that I feel brought Chinese devices one step closer to what I will term "apple-ness". The iFive Mini 3 leaves them all in the dust though and the iPad Mini is even struggling to keep up in the area of design. Lets talk some numbers here... (these are what I could gather from a bit of web searching as I don't have the tools to do measurement, however based on the feel of the device and comparison with other units I believe these to be accurate).
iPad Mini:
Razor-Thin 7.2mm
7.87" x 5.3"
Ultra-Light 308 g of Weight
iFive Mini3:
Thinner! 6.5mm
Smaller! 7.8" x 5.25"
Lighter! 250 g