WinBook J4 Pentium 4 2.4GHz

Features - Software

The WinBook J4 comes with your choice of Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional. If you chose to go with the Home version, the price of the notebook is reduced $99. We were glad to see WinBook opt to include the Windows XP operating system standard as opposed to trying to squirm by with an older operating system or none at all.

The WinBook J4 also comes with WinDVD v3.1, arguably the best software DVD player on the market today. That was a nice plus, but other than that the J4's software package is fairly weak. CD-R and CD-RW functionality is left to Windows XP's built in burning software. We often become frustrated with the native burning support of Windows XP due to the fact that it redundantly copies all items to be burned from one location to a temporary one. Since this process can add precious minutes to a burn, we would have much rather seen the J4 ship with a dedicated burning program such as Easy CD Creator.

We would have liked to see WinBook throw in an office suite of some sorts as part of the standard package. As it stands now, J4 owners will have to get a copy of their favorite office applications off retail shelves. In the case of Office XP, this can tag an additional $300 or more onto the price of the notebook.