1. Introduction

In mid-October, WinBook announced its "lightest ultra-portable...ever" with some fanfare, while also sounding a low-cost charge into this category. In truth, WinBook's X610 laptop computer is a small, lightweight unit that's modest in price - and to some degree in capabilities - but it offers decent value in exchange for a prospective buyer's hard-earned cash. While neither as miniscule nor as light as a Toshiba Libretto or a Sony Vaio TX series ultraportable, at 3.3 pounds and with dimensions of 10.82" x 9.25" x 1.17", the WinBook X610 is still fairly small and easy to transport.

The WinBook X610 Lightweight Laptop available at winbook.com

The X610 is built around the 1.6 GHz Intel Pentium M 725 processor and includes 512 MB of PC-2700 400 MHz DDR2 memory as well as a built-in DVD burner and an 80 GB hard drive. With a price tag of around $1,400 (give or take a few bucks) it's not a bad buy for what you get in return.

The X610 ships with Windows XP SP2 Professional pre-installed, but offers little in the way of additional software. The unit includes an Asus DVD player, the OEM version of Nero 6.0 (which lacks some backup and burning capabilities and can't handle as many types of discs or formats as the full-blown Ultra version), OEM versions of CyberLink's Power Director (v3.0.1208) and Media Show (2.0v214), a 30-day trial version of Norton AntiVirus 2005, and not much else.

The X610 can only be upgraded to accommodate another 256 MB of RAM (for a total of 768 MB) which isn't a huge amount by today's standards and may not be enough for effective use of Windows Vista when it ships in later this year. Likewise, the unit gets its graphics capabilities entirely from the Intel i915GM graphics chipset on its motherboard. Our testing showed this to be something of an underperformer when compared to other laptops we've tested - another potential source of grief for those interested in Windows Vista, because its graphical requirements far outstrip those for Windows XP.