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Notebook Computers
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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Sunday, 01 July 2007 |
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Page 1 of 2
Thanks to Antec for the product sample.
In today's market, buying a laptop is no easier than picking out parts for a new PC, but generally there are two main categories: mobility and powerhouse. Fortunately highly mobile, lightweight, low power consumption notebooks are becoming more widely available with each passing day, but there's always going to be a bigger, better (albeit power hungry and heat guzzling) desktop replacement. Mine came about two years ago in the form of Dell's Inspiron 8200 and with it came loads of heat.
It's quite obvious that laptops have extremely poor ventilation; you're lucky to get a couple low profile sub-40mm exhaust fans if even that. Most rely either on convection, lateral fans (also known as "squirrel cage" blowers) or a combination of the two. While heat isn't much of an issue with Centrino-based laptops, powerful desktop replacements running full fledged P4s or Athlons get quite toasty and there have been reported cases of people being burned.
Personally, my 8200 gets way too hot to stay on my lap and although it's been running smoothly for the past couple years I'm concerned about the shortened lifespan of the components that results from this heat. In general, desktop replacements don't rely on modular drives and inch-thick width, but rather a powerful package capable of running high end games and executing other system-demanding operations (such as modeling and rendering) while still being mobile.
Since notebooks are the most proprietary PCs, cooling modifications are far and few due to difficult implementation and the removal of any warranties, so the solution comes to us in the form of external cooling. The simplest and most pursued form is the laptop cooler pad. Companies have explored everything from giant heatsinks to active cooling to heatpipe technology, and Antec is one of them, utilizing the more conventional fan method.
The pad comes in a retail package with styrofoam molds and a carrying handle. There are two available versions, black (what I have) and "pearl" (white). Aesthetically, I think the black matches laptops better. The cooler has a somewhat awkward shape that doesn't appear to serve any functional purpose. The top is brushed aluminum with a circular grating (more for looks than functionality) with Antec's logo in the center. Outside trim is glossy plastic. The flipside is solid plastic with four rubbery feet on the corners to prevent the unit from slipping as well as providing some room for the fans to exhaust air through. The cables are contained within a compartment that snaps open. This is pretty handy for storage and transportation.
As expected the cooler is powered by your laptop's USB port. Antec used a pass-through connector to ensure that you don't use up any needed ports. Unfortunately the other side of the connector is too thick and this may interfere with other devices that use a USB port if two ports should happen to be directly on top of each other or side by side. The other side of the cable plugs into the unit. There's also an on/off switch so you power on the fans only when things get warm and an LED that lets you know it's running. Here are the cooler specs off the box:
- Size: 13" x 11.2" x 0.8"
- Net weight: 1.6lbs
- USB cable length: 30"
- Voltage: 5V DC
- Current: 0.4A
- Power consumption: 2 watts
- Fans: 2 x 70mm
- Fan speed: 2500RPM (average)
- Airflow: 31.6 CFM
- Acoustic noise: 25.9 dBA
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the cooler fit my behemoth of a "laptop" just fine. Weighting in at 1.6lbs it's not exactly light (by notebook standards). Initially I wanted to run a test to determine the difference in battery life observed with the cooler on and off, but I decided against this after I found that my battery doesn't last more than 30 minutes playing a DVD anyway, meaning that by the time my computer got hot enough the battery would be dead anyway. This also holds true for a lot of "workstation" notebooks out there and since most work on these desktop replacements will be done with the AC adapter plugged in, battery life isn't a deciding factor.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 14 July 2007 )
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