WinBook J1

WinBook J1

The WinBook J1 was WinBook's consumer laptop for the end of the Pentium III era. The J1 is unique in that it uses soldered desktop Pentium III "Coppermine" CPUs, something I've never seen in another laptop. My own J1 actually has a 1.1GHz Coppermine chip in it, which is apparantly just a rare CPU in general. Too bad they're soldered down, but it's still really neat.

The J1 was manufactured for WinBook by Alpha-Top Corporation, and was known by Alpha-Top as the model Green720. While I believe the Green720 was exclusive to WinBook, it is only a lightly modified Green799, which was sold by other companies. The J1 is a little larger though, and by far the most common version of this laptop.

The J1 has some compelling features - the keyboard is good, it has good I/O, it's a 3 spindle system, the speakers are good, and the rear LCD housing is made of aluminum, which should greatly reduce hinge failures. Still, it has a lackluster graphics card, so its gaming performance is limited.


Specifications

Spec Details
CPU CPU Type: Socket 370 (Soldered)
- Intel Pentium III "Coppermine" @850MHz, 1.0GHz, or 1.1GHz
- Intel Celeron @700MHz or 1.0GHz
Chipset VIA VT8601, VT686A
RAM Type: PC100 SDRAM, 2x 144pin Slots
Standard: Unknown
Maximum: 512MB
Hard Disk 2.5" IDE
Uses proprietary adapter?: Yes
Standard: 10 or 20GB
Display Options - 12.1" TFT LCD @1024x768
- 13.3" TFT LCD @1024x768
- 14.1" TFT LCD @1024x768
Graphics Chipset Trident Cyberblade i1
VRAM: 2-8MB shared/SMA
Audio VIA VT1611A
Main Battery - Lithium Ion (3600mAH)
- NiMH (3800mAH)
CMOS Battery Proprietary Lithium
Power Supply Barrel Jack, 19V
Disk Drives 3 Spindle
- 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive
- CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or CD-RW/DVD
PC Cards 1x PCMCIA/CardBus Slot
- ZoomVideo Support
- TI 1410 Controller
Networking - Modem
- Ethernet (Optional)
Other I/O - 1x Parallel
- 1x Serial
- 1x VGA Out
- 2x USB 1.1
- 1x Mic In
- 1x Line Out
BIOS Phoenix
Pointing Device Trackpad

Resources


Drivers

User Manual
Archived Support Pages

Common Faults & Maintenance

The J1 seems to be a fairly reliable machine. As the J1's rear display housing is made of metal, hinge failures should be greatly reduced. The plastic is definitely becoming brittle though - one part to watch out for is the clutch cover above the keyboard. I bunch of the clips broke on mine when I took it off. The J1 is generally a huge pain to take apart, and you have to do a full teardown to get to the proprietary Lithium CMOS battery.


Gallery

Print Ads

Also shows a peek at the Z1 and X1 notebooks.





Page last updated (MM/DD/YYYY): 11/03/2024
Update Reason: page converted to php

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