WinBook J4 Pentium 4 2.4GHz

The front of the WinBook J4 gets a welcome addition when compared to the ECS i-Buddie solutions. We noted before that the front of this style of laptop case is fairly bare with only two speaker ports and a release lever. These items remain on the WinBook J4 but this system also benefits from the addition of CD control buttons mounted on the front of the case.

These buttons allow for the laptop to be used as a CD player while system power is off. The set of seven buttons give full control over the J4's CD-ROM drive while the unit is off. This allows for the J4 to play back audio CDs while using only a fraction of the power required to do this with the computer running. CD access is enabled by sliding the power switch to the right which in turn lights up a small power LED to the left of the power button. Once on, the six buttons can be used to play/pause the CD, eject the CD, go back one track or rewind in the current track, skip to the next track or fast forward in the current track, decrease audio volume, and increase audio volume. The play/pause button also has a small LED behind it which lights up when the J4 is playing a CD.

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We think that the ability to playback audio CDs without booting the entire laptop is a nice feature. This could come in quite useful in those long flights where the laptop's battery in an operating system may be short.

As we noted before when briefly mentioning the speakers, there are speaker holes on the front of the J4 but there are no speakers behind these holes. They are there simply to allow for the speakers to be placed in a variety of locations depending on the specific configuration of the system inside.

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Another difference between the WinBook J4 and the ECS i-Buddie struck us when we turned the system to show its left side. Whereas on the i-Buddie models the left side of the system is fairly bare, the left side of the J4 is home to a welcome addition: a PCMCIA slot. We are beginning to see how the J4 is different from a desknote. Since the J4 is a true laptop it could not get away with removing a much needed PCMCIA slot. Despite the abundance of room on the side of the J4, only one PCMCIA slot is present. It would have been nice to see two PCMCIA slots, allowing for two type II or one type III PCMCIA card, especially on a system thus big. Then again, with built in modem, LAN, and 802.11b connectivity, one PCMCIA slot should prove to be enough for some time.

Also found on the left hand side of the system is a single 4-pin unpowered IEEE-1394 port. Again this is a bit different than the configuration found on the ECS desknote system we have looked at because the J4 is, in fact, a mobile machine. Because of this, WinBook could not afford going with a power hungry 6-pin powered IEEE-1394 port. Right next to the firewire port is the ethernet jack followed by a large vented area that helps keep the CPU cool.

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Like much of the J4's exterior, the back of the system is very similar to the back side of the desknote systems. Located on the back right side is a large cooling vent behind which lies the J4's heatsink. To the left of the large vent is the J4's power-in port followed by the modem jack and an s-video out connection. Next to the s-video port is another, smaller, cooling vent used to help cool the J4's northbridge and video chip. In a recessed area to the left of this vent lie two ports: a VGA-out port and a printer port. Since the ports are mounted in a recessed area, they do not stick out the back of the system. Finally the back side of the J4 is rounded off with an IR window and two audio jacks, one for microphone input and one for stereo output.

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The right side of the J4 includes an impressive stack of four USB 1.1 ports, a Kensington lock port, and the unit's optical drive. Our J4 came with a 8x/8x/4x/24x DVD/CD-RW combo drive but a 24x CD-ROM drive and an 8x DVD drive are also available. Needless to say we were a bit disappointed with the four USB ports found on the J4. We would have much rather seen WinBook include an extra chip that would have allowed for USB 2.0 support. Sure, the firewire port will probably hold you over for now but we feel that the future will be in USB 2.0 devices, not IEEE-1394 (with the exception of DV devices). Remember, in the world of notebook upgrades it is often not what you can put inside the notebook but what you can connect to the notebook.

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If you compare the bottom of the WinBook J4 to the bottom of the ECS i-Buddie system we previously reviewed, you will notice that the bottom front of the two systems is quite different. The reason for this is because the WinBook J4 has to make room for its internal lithium ion battery. The battery stretches almost the whole length of the notebook and takes up almost one third of the notebook's total length. It is released by lifting up the battery release lever located on top of the battery.

In the middle of the system is an access panel that covers the SODIMM memory which we will discuss more in the Under the Hood section of this review. The other two access panels are located on the back left and right side of the J4. The large panel on the left can be removed to provide access to the unit's hard drive while the long access panel on the right covers the desktop Pentium 4 CPU. Between these two panels is a cooling fan that sucks air from beneath the system and uses it to cool the northbridge and the video chips. The bottom of the system also includes an optical drive release lever that can be lifted to slide out the J4's optical drive.

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The J4 did not get very hot, reaching a maximum temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.1 degrees Celsius) on the bottom of the system right below the CPU access panel. The side of the J4 reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40.0 degrees Celsius). This temperature was measured on the systems left side right by the exhaust port.

With its size and weight, the WinBook J4 is certainly a desktop replacement system. The unit measures 13.07" x 10.81" x 1.81" making it only slightly taller than the i-Buddie desknotes. Thanks to the J4's battery, the unit actually weights quite a bit more than the battery-less i-Buddie systems. The WinBook J4 weighs in at an almost backbreaking 8.36 pounds. That makes the WinBook J4 the heaviest system AnandTech has seen to date, followed closely by the 8.3 pound Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277. At this weight, the J4 is heavier than most newborns.