Since heat buildup is one of the leading causes of equipment failure, I decided to pick this up and put it to the test on my TR2. The build quality is very good, the perforated aluminum top plate and Sony Ericsson T616-esque glossy black plastic make for a nice-looking accessory. For even more fashion-conscious people, you can get a version that has a pearl-colored outer border, which matches the TR quite well. The TR also gets lifted up about an inch off the work surface, which helps ergonomics a bit.
The thing that sets this apart from other notebook coolers/stands is that it offers active cooling, with two 70mm fans spinning at 2500RPM built into the bottom. In one month’s usage, the bottom of the TR stayed cool, and only got warm on occasion. When I used the laptop on my glass desk without the cooler, the left bottom area got very warm as usual and I could feel the heat on the underside of the glass.
The cooler is made for easy transport, weighing only 1.6 lbs, and has a convienent cord storage area on the bottom. Even though it is powered through a USB port, the plug has a passthrough so you don’t lose the use of the port. I just plug mine into a powered USB hub and turn it off with the switch when necessary.
The bad thing is that the fans are relatively loud when they go about their work. Compared to a lot of PSU and desktop fans they’re quiet, but when the TR runs nearly silent, the added fan noise is rather noticeable. It’s a small price to pay for keeping a $2000+ investment cool though.
So it works, looks good, and is cheap. If you run your TR most of the day like I do and don’t mind some fan noise, have a look at this. I’ll check out the iCurve and see if I like it better sometime in the future.
As long as you don’t place the TR on carpet or use it on the bed too often, then heat buildup won’t be a real problem. Laptops have more components packed together in a tiny space than desktops do, so heat buildup is a concern at times. I leave my TR on downloading files or encoding movies overnight quite often, and keeping it cool when it’s doing processor-intensive tasks is something I’m willing to spend $25 on.
does this notebook cooler work on the lap? it doesn’t seem to since the ventilation will probably be blocked. anyone know of a good notebook cooler for the lap?
It works okay on my lap, since the fans are towards the middle of the pad. I guess you’re out of luck if you sit with your legs tightly together, but the pad is large enough that it can rest comfortably on your legs and still draw air in from the middle.
It also helps out when I watch DVDs or surf the Internet in bed, I don’t even run the fan when I use it in this manner, since keeping the vents clear and the TR off the bedding is a significant improvement.
I picked mine up from Staples, and I’ve also seen it at Office Depot. Amazon.com also carries it, do a search for “antec notebook cooler” and all three online shops should have it. Amazon has the best price though, $32 the last time I checked. The cooler weighs only 1.5 pounds, so weight isn’t really a concern.
Being USB powered, the fans in the cooler seem to be standard DC 5V. It would be a simple matter of inverting the polarity in order to have them blowing up air, rather than extracting.
That said, I am not sure how happy I’d be with a cooler blowing dust *into* the bottom of the TR rather than extracting heat :?
I seem to recall reading that just blowing cool air on a proc is about 5 times more effective than just blowing away hot air, which is why all CPU fans blow down onto the CPU. Obviously an ideal cooling solution will do both…
The fans working against each other is a valid point, but the TR’s internal fan never turns on when it’s on the cooler. I think it’s worth it because it’s cheap and does its job. I also use it on the bed a lot, and it helps having a platform to keep it from sinking into the covers.
