Update: The delivery company failed to bring the JiaYu S3 today. I did receive the Xiaomi Redmi 2 and Ulefone Be Pro. Hopefully tomorrow it will come.
Great news this morning, as the delivery of our JiaYu S3 has been confirmed and the phone is winging its way to us I type.
JiaYu are notoriously slow when it comes to releasing their new phones, and this year is no different! The difference this time though is that the next generation JiaYu S3 is heading to us right now and we will soon learn if the wait for this flagship Mediatek phone will be worth it or not.
The JiaYu S3 is JiaYu’s first phone for 2015, and also their first phone to move to alloy construction, a 64bit processor, LTE and boast a dual LED flash. From photos that we have seen and posted (some below) the S3 is a handsome device.
Gizchina News of the week
In China JiaYu are already shipping the 2GB RAM version of the JiaYu S3 to customers, with 3GB RAM models promised before the Chinese Spring Festival. I don’t know which version of the JiaYu S3 we will take delivery of, but judging from the hardware both models are going to be potent smartphones.
As soon as I receive the JiaYu S3 I will get an uboxing, hands on and first impressions of this highly anticipated smartphone posted ASAP.
JiaYu S3 photos
Great news 🙂
But is there any chance that they fixed the video recording? I have seen few video samples and they are very bad, but regular photographs are awesome quality.
I guess is a matter of time. Because here, we know the camera is good and capable. It’s just a question of software optimization.
I think i did read something about that on the Jiayu forums. They are working on it.
Unfortunately i can not link it here as the links with BBS posts are not approved by the admins of Giz it seems :'(
Are you considering buying the Jiayu S3 Robert ?
It is on its way as we speak.
You bought one already ?
Which reseller ?
It looks like vifocal has the cheapest price.
I just noticed Vifocal’s only offering the S3 Basic
S3 Advanced doesn’t exist right now. Jiayu has got some issue on receiving 3GB RAM modules. Today they announced a second Basic wave, from 28/01 to 08/02, than S3 Advanced will not be produced before 08/02.
Thanks for letting me know.
My body is ready.
is it plastic or metallic ? 😀
airyl is made of titanium, he’s the terminator don’t you know? 😀
Actually, I used to have a dimpled back and a chrome band around me, but everyone told me I looked like band-aid. Those were the worst days of my life. Everyone was comparing me to fruit, and people were calling me the “worst thing since the Thunderbolt’s battery life”.
That’s when I turned to metal. I smoothed out my dimples and replaced my chrome with some metal. I even slimmed myself down. Unfortunately, my battery became extremely small in the process, and I could barely last a day. Nobody payed me much attention, despite the changes I had gone through.
That’s when my makers decided to change me. They reinforced me with more metal, gave me a faux leather coat (without stitching) and armed me with 8-cores and a pen. My battery was enlarged. I had been reborn. Now, I scourge the the world looking for 6 pluses to destroy with my 2K vision.
wow!
ALL HAIL LORD Airyl Terminator !
Out of interest Airyl, why are you so enthusiastic about this phone ?
It’s sort of thing between me and JiaYu phones. I’ve honestly never been let down by any JiaYu phone that I’ve used. The closest thing to a let down was the G6, and the G6 itself was amazing. The ports and the price were the only bad thing about it to me.
JiaYu is pretty much the only brand I’d say I’m a fanboy of, with Vivo being up there thanks to the Xshot.
Sounds good ! Hopefully the S3 & S4 will be great phones 🙂
It’s faux leather. 😛
So… the phone, has arrived?
GRRRRR nope…. I was promised it would come and I have received the Redmi 2 and Ulefone Be Pro…. I hope it will be here tomorrow!
Hmz, lets hope so indeed!
Are you getting it directly from Jiayu or via some reseller?
Am looking forward 🙂
Hopefully Andi! oo
IT’S COMING!! HAHA
Well the camera is better than the Meizu m1? That’s the biggest question!!
Anyway I think the Meizu is better choice I hope will have some updates and not stock Rom!
camera (photos) is better than meizu m1 only video recording is bad.
Thanks for the answers! Yes with Jiayu buying all the packet dual flash, good camera, sd card, removable battery,plus dual SIM 4G.
I can’t get it other company’s don’t see why Jiayu is winning? this small things makes a complete phone and the price point they have is acceptable for many people.
How many photos can you shoot with that meizu before you need to run to your PC to transfer those photos because it ran out of space?
www dot ejiayu dot com/en/News2-1-201.html
Meizu has got a 2.2 focal Samsung sensor, Jiayu a 2.0 focal Sony sensor, the same as Xiaomi Mi4, Oneplus One, etc. So Jiayu sensor is better, probably it needs some more optimization from Jiayu engineers
They usually have amazing screen quality complete with gorilla glass protection (so a screen protector will only hurt it).
But it’s a tempered glass screen protector, so it’s quite useful.
It’s not, it’s as useful as the one already installed and of course it’s also useful in degrading how the screen looks if that’s to your fancy.
Unless you live in beach area, screen protector is moot for phone with tempered glass built-in.
Is a non glass screen protector any use ?
Agree, if they use the right glass (99.2% optical) then its great to have a glass protector. If you are lucky it takes the hit on a drop and the protector breaks instead screen.
That’s what I mean, most normal screen protectors are useless when this phone has Gorilla Glass 3, but the glass screen protector, can luckily take the damage if the phone falls.
uhm, I’m not sure you’re right…
My old smartphone is broken after a 40cm fall on the floor. It was not a gorilla glass display, and there was a glass screen protector.
Ye, unfortunately it’s like i said “luckily” it can take the damage, but not always, just like you phone can fall and nothing happen.
there will be some kind of anti-oil layer, but I don’t know if it’s on screen or by using screen protector
As far as i can see now the 3GB model is still under testing (last post by Wade on the forums). Can’t agree about Jiayu being slow this time. From announcement of pre-order to delivery is 1 month. Not to bad if you ask me. (and 50K units, how different compared to the G3).
The 3GB model (if i read on the forum) is due to be delivered a few days before the the Chinese new year. To bad as this will cause big delays in international delivery :P.
The first Jiayu unit i bought was the Jiayu G2, at that time not even listed on any international reseller :D. Good old times 😛
can you share the post? Thanks, I just wat to follow it 🙂
It’s in Chinese
That’s no matter, send me please 🙂
Sorry can’t. Posted the links twice. Not approved by Giz it seems.
Omg, I can’t wait for it!
A MIUI rom has been published for the S3, that’s quite nice for people who like this OS (not sure if there are many bugs).
Please test the speaker sound (seems there are some serious complaints about this matter from Chinese buyers).
GPS is very good according to Chinese users, so that is already one less thing to worry about. Screen quality and signal quality is also good. For people who are new with Mediatek phones, GPS was always a issue with Mediatek phones. Of course, it all depends on the manufacturers to implement it well and test it properly.
I really want a full AOSP Rom of It, and Hopefully we can get it soon!
A Lollipop one 5.0.x !
Is MIUI v5 or v6 ?
v6
Do you have a link for it ?
http : // 112.95.238.153/thread-1240535-1-1.html
take off some blank in URL address above.
Anyway, if you don’t speak Chinese, I suggest you to use google translate 😉
consider that right now the forum is down, they shut down it every night
Thanks for that. Out of interest: How does the Rom exist if the phone isn’t even out yet ?
1. some power user (in China) received engineering sample for testing
2 .Basic version is already shipping (in China)
3. the ROM is already available in needrom dot com
Thanks.
Hi Demetrio,
The link doesn’t work anymore. Do you have another one or someway to post a link for it?
Thanks in advance
I’m not able to find it anymore. I looked for it in first 10 forum pages… really strange. I’ll follow looking for it, if I found again the post I’ll link to you.
I am sorely tempted to pre order, but will wait for Andi’s review.
How does Jiayu S3 compare with OnePlus One ?
Andi I have two question about this model. Will Jiayu release a version with 32 Gb of storage? If they will, When will it be released? Thanks for your answers. Regards.
Today there’s no plans for a 32GB version. Advanced version as got 3GB RAM and NFC vs 2GB RAM and no NFC of Basic version. That’s all.
32 GB could get the price higher (even 100$), and people usually doesn’t need so much, or they could buy a class10 SD card for a much lower price (10$ for 16GB, 25$ for 32GB and so on).
You could always use USB-OTG flash drive !
I usually backup older pictures and videos on my home network drive.
I just use a couple of heavy games for my child and me 😉
Will this work with US T-mobile LTE?
US T-mobile has got 3 bands, but coverage depends from areas. (wikipedia, “T-Mobile US” + “List of LTE Networks”)
The bands are 2 4 and 12 in FDD , S3 supports 3 7 and 20.
Unluckily no USA carrier uses at least one global band.
andy i would like to see a review between
JiaYu S3 vs Ulefone Be Pro ..i guess those are the most affordable cellphones now.. because i saw meizu note 1 pictures and not at good at all …
http://meizunews.com/2015/01/18/meizu-m1-note-vs-meizu-mx4-photos-shootout/
Should have both very soon
Is the front camera definitely 5MP ?
Yes, 5MP F2.4, made by Samsung.
It should be enough for selphies 😀
Thanks for clarifying. I’m not sure whether to go for the S3 or the S4 to be honest though.
We don’t know when S4 will be ready to market, you could wait serveral months.
Take a look to Meizu M1 mini, it should be similar to S4 and it will be officially announced during this week.
Thanks for that, i’m in no desperate hurry so may wait or may just go for the S3, could always go for a smaller phone at a later date.
Whats the ppi on the Jiayu S3 ?
From what I can see 440.
About 400 ppi (440 is for 5″ display)
Would you go for S3 instead of OPO ?
What do you mean for “OPO”?
One Plus one.
You got it 🙂
The One has a Snapdragon 801. You can’t compare that one to the chipset of the S3. The individual cores of the One+ are faster but consume more power then the MTK chipset in the S3.
OK, then my answer is “NO, I don’t”, simply because I need Dual SIM and I want NFC
hello i waIt for the review!!!its monday!!!
where is the review
on gizchina.com, but today they receive the smartphone, than we can expect an unboxing review for late evening, not a full review
Still nothing, what’s going on?
On the BBS you can see that the last thread from admin ”wade” tells about the 3GB version of the phone. Parts for the 3GB version are due to arrive early next month.
10 days in advance of Jiayu will open sales.
So i think/hope that the 3GB version will be ready just before the Spring festival 😀
Hi Andy. Could you test the following issues from Chinese users?
1) loud-speakers normal or poor(not hifi, we could expect great sound from stereo speaker. Somebody took off dust filter behind the cover to reduce bad sound)
2) battery stand-by normal (thanks to CPU and battery capacity, I expect 2 days of normal use, but users talk about just one day, somebody told there’s too much power consumption during stand-by, maybe because of unlock gestures)
3) photo normal (we saw amazing and very very poor pictures, where’s the truth?)
4) USB cable normal or poor or power supply not good enough. Consider that Jiayu implemented the following load strategy to boost load time while preserving battery health:
– 1.5 h at 1A
– 1.0 h at 0.78A
– 1.5 h using a decreasing current from 0.73 to 0.21 A
Total load was under 2.9Ah, but temperature was always near constant, between 23 and 27 degrees
I’ve just received my JiaYu S3 without Play Store. I’ve seen the Needrom link, how easy is it to get the correct ROM with GAPPS? Question for RobertNL, I live in the Netherlands, can you help me out?
now you can:
a) install ROM 3 (update 20150205) by using SP Flash tool
b) install TWRP recovery (available in needrom) and use it to add gapps (that you can download from xda-developers)
The phone is really good, i bought my last week on this site http://www.efox.com.pt/-envios-da-espanha-jiayu-s3-2gb-ram-mtk6752-64-bit-octa-core-55-polegadas-ips-fhd-tela-android-44-g-312330 really cheap!!!