WinBook J4 Pentium 4 2.4GHz

Conclusion

WinBook targets the desktop replacement category of machines with the J4 and, given the J4's size, this is only appropriate. In fact, when the J4 was announced, it was the first mobile system to be based on the fastest Pentium 4 processor at the time, something that no other manufacturer can claim. With its raw power the WinBook J4 is was designed to make you get rid of you desktop. Unfortunately, at this time, the J4 is in no place to do so.

We would have been able to make do with the J4's large size and heavy weight if the unit did not suffer from what, in our eyes, are two major design flaws: the SDR system memory bus and the underclocked ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 solution.

Let us first discuss the memory bus. To tell you the truth we are not quite sure why WinBook opted to use an SDR system memory bus on the high end J4. Looking at the lower end J4 model, the one based off of the SiS 650 chipset, we see that this unit uses DDR PC2100 system memory. The supposedly higher end J4 that we took a look at today, based off of the Intel 845 chipset, uses a SDR PC133 memory bus. Our first thought was that perhaps price had something to do with it but with the J4's maximum price tag of almost $3,400 USD it does not seem like price is that large of a concern. Our second idea was that WinBook wanted to save battery life by using DDR memory. This idea, however, had no clout as even Intel's own dedicated mobile chipset, the 845MP, uses a DDR memory bus. With these options ruled out, your guess is as good as ours as to why the high end J4 uses SDR memory. A fairly simple modification of the board should be all that is necessary to enable an 845 DDR chipset solution on the J4; a modification that would help performance tremendously at the higher clock speeds that the J4 is able to accept.

Next we come to the Mobility Radeon 7500 clock speed decision. We know that the Mobility Radeon 7500 is able to run at 270/183MHz and that even most of the high-end notebooks that use the Mobility Radeon 7500 run the chip at this speed. So why does the Mobility Radeon 7500 in the WinBook J4 run at 260/143MHz? Again, your guess is as good as ours. The only idea that we had regarding the lower clock speed of the chip is that heat was becoming an issue. With a desktop Pentium 4 2.4GHz processor close at hand, the internals of the J4 are sure to get a might bit toasty. It could be that WinBook was having problems cooling the Mobility Radeon 7500 in the J4 and decided to ship the chips at a lower clock speed to ensure stability. This seems like the most likely case but we can not be sure. All we can be sure of is that by lowering the core clock speed by 10MHz and the memory clock speed by 40MHz, 3D performance of the J4 has suffered.

We were pleased with the 2D performance of the WinBook J4, as it was able to readily beat any of the other notebooks we have reviewed in office and content creation type tasks. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that any system with a similar speed processor (2.2GHz, 2.3GHz, 2.4GHz) should have no problem beating out the WinBook J4 2.4GHz provided that the system uses a DDR system memory bus. At the higher clock speeds of the Pentium 4 the system memory bus speed becomes increasingly important and can not be traded for raw MHz.

The WinBook J4 2.4GHz is a stable system and well built with easy access to many of the unit's guts. We liked the integrated wireless, the CD audio controls at the front of the system, and the system's generous keyboard. At $3,393.00 USD, however, we suggest that you look elsewhere for your power desktop replacement; that or wait for the J4s with a DDR system memory bus and a full speed Mobility Radeon 7500 to come out.