The Twinhead J13S adopts a simple yet elegant overall design which befits the rest of the notebook. Besides the Twinhead logo in the center of the cover lid, most of the cover lid is decked in white with a black belt near the hinge. This design is repeated on the main body as well, giving a nice black and white layer effect when the cover lid is closed. It’s not flashy and it is easy on the eye. Our only concern is that the white cover lid and body may get dirty after some time since it’s not glossy or appears to be coated with any form of protection from smudges.

Twinhead has also opted to keep the dashboard simple, putting the two shortcut buttons – the power and media player buttons – next to the tiny speakers on both sides. It’s a cute design touch that keeps the interface uncluttered and tidy. The absence of any other media player or application buttons is no loss if you rarely use them. The cover lid sports an unobtrusive integrated web camera above the 13.3” display for video capturing. Video quality is good with little lag despite lacking brightness.

The keyboard keys are also in white, though they’re a shade brighter than the palm rest. They felt comfortable to type on, though some keys on the right are a little narrower than most other keyboards. The touchpad is responsive and the touch pad buttons feel fine, though larger buttons would be preferable as they felt a little too narrow for clicking. The rest of the palm rest area felt solid, which it should as Twinhead promises that the keyboard, touchpad and buttons are spill resistant.

The J13S comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 processor running at 2.2GHz, on the latest Centrino chipset platform. With a 160GB HDD and 2GB of RAM, the hardware configuration is ample enough for any current operating system. We say this because the J13S doesn’t come with any operating system software installed, so you’re free to install your own. Although this helps to cut down on costs it’s somewhat a hassle to individually install all the software drivers, especially when the Driver CD doesn’t come with an “Install All Drivers” option.
The 13.3” widescreen display and good brightness levels make the J13S a pretty decent multimedia machine. The speakers are loud and sharp though there is a somewhat muffled quality to vocal performances and spoken lines. DVD playback time was approximately 106 minutes, which is long enough for a short movie.

Slim and light, the Twinhead J13S is a budget Centrino notebook that comes with the fluff. Its main attraction mostly lies in its simple elegance, uncluttered with any buttons or bloatware that tend to come with most new notebooks.

For a simple mobile productivity machine, the Twinhead J13S is an appealing purchase for first time notebook owners.