This was mentioned earlier in the week on Slashdot, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention here as well. A company called LapLogic has come up with some heat insulators for laptops which they call the LapPad. The idea is that they reduce heat transfer from your laptop to your lap (as much as 57 degrees, apparently).
The Gadgeteer has a review and it confirms that the LapPads actually work, though the reviewer didn’t check CPU temperatures in the test laptop. Some of the armchair quarterbacks on Slashdot expressed concerns along those lines, saying that the heat would just be reflected back into the laptop; I’ll wait for actual measurements before I make up my mind about that.
Reading over of The Gadgeteer’s forum thread on the topic, a couple other products came up. One was the CoolPad, which seems interesting at first — especially since it can swivel — but the “stackable risers” seem like one more thing to lose (the tilt can be adjusted by stacking multiple rubber widgets).
Another interesting product is the KoolSink which is really just a piece of Aluminum bent into a wedge (it cools passively through convection). The wedge is even wide enough so that the laptop can be nested inside the KoolSink for traveling (there’re pictures of this in the “bonus” section at the bottom of their details page).
With the heat that my PowerBook gives off, I can rarely make it past 45 minutes on my lap; so, I’ll be buying one of these. The LapPads look tempting, especially since they’re foldable for traveling. And, the original reviewer mentioned in the forums that she’s found a CPU temperature app and she’ll be updating the review once she completes her measurements. That may be the deciding factor in what laptop-cooling device I’ll buy.
from the mug list i’m on:
http://www.lapinator.com/
Hmmm, I was jes’ think’ ’bout all the heat that transfers to your hand when you are holdin’ the television remote control. I wonder how much interest there might be in a special glove to put on your hand so as to use the remote to turn on the TV.
By the way, is it jes’ me, or does it irk the heck out of ya when people don’t script links so that they are clickable?
Well, we’ll see how the LapLogic one does. Heat has always bugged me, but with my new, bigger Dell it burns my flesh off after about 20 mins on my lap. I’ll let you know how it goes when it arrives.
Thanks for in the info that got me to finally get off my ass and make a purchase!
I think the Vantec (scroll down to bottom) or Antec are a lot better. I may get the Antec they look really nice and seem to cool well.