HEATSHIFT ThermaPAK LAPTOP-COOLER REVIEW

Remember, even a few degrees “WILL” extend the life of your laptop.

Summary

Laptops run pretty warm nowadays and it has been long proven that the hotter a machine runs, will ultimately reduce its overall life - Fact!  It will also run less efficiently, and just as importantly, be downright uncomfortable sitting for any period of time on your lap. I rarely put a laptop on my lap, although my wife and many friends will sit for hours on end with a laptop on there's. So how can we make the experience more comfortable while maintaining a better “MTBF” (Mean Time Before Failure) of all critical components, especially our hard drive!

The “CPU” (Central Processing Unit) is a pain when it fries, but what price do you put on your personal data? Three years of photos,six months of reports, all that software you downloaded with no backup. The latest stats say only 1 in 9 people back-up on a regular monthly basis. Instead relying on the integrity of a bunch of glass platters or discs spinning at stupid speeds in a little metal box, scary isn’t it !!!

So today where going to look at a new type of product in its field that potentially could extend the life of your laptop, make it more comfortable to use, and uses absolutely no power. If you're thinking "Yeah Right!", then you should definitely read on.

As laptops get more powerful and smaller, heat generation has become a bigger and bigger issue; there’s a plethora of aftermarket products available out there that work to varying degrees with cooling in mind.

Nearly all laptops nowadays use a “Heat pipe” technology instead of just fan with heatsinks which, is a simple form of phase change cooling in its self. I don’t want to get too technical so we’ll cover this........ lightly.

Take when you fire up the gas BBQ, after about 10 minutes you notice the gas bottle has got pretty cool, maybe even downright cold, that’s “Phase Change”! The liquid leaving the bottle has turned into a gas, and a by product of this process is cooling! Your fridge, Air conditioners all use this principle to do what they do.

“ThermaPak™” coolers use this principle with a fluid based crystal Na₂SO₄·10H₂O more commonly known as “Glauber’s salts that changes to a gel like fluid when exposed to heat and as a by product of this physical change, the Phase Change Effect, or to you and me “Cooling”

I had my doubts as to how well this product with zero moving parts would perform in backing up some pretty amazing claims in so far as the temp reductions claimed, but remember, even a few degrees “WILL” extend the life of your laptop. I tested the cooler under full load, light load and idle, on the table and on my lap as well with all stats recorded with “CPUID” hardware monitor software, this proving to be the most accurate one out there of the several monitors I tried out. My first concern from a design perspective was the lowish profile of the ribs.  Laptops need a healthy supply of cool, dry, air to cool internal components with the fan intake nearly always being on the bottom face.

After six hours of testing on the table with light load on the Heatshift, the biggest temp drop was in the chassis at 9 degrees Fahrenheit or 5 degrees Celsius. This might not sound like much but remember, this is your hard drive and motherboard w'ere talking about here. CPU core temps as expected spiked under light or full load with the matt on the table. Restricting the cooling fan intake to any degree, you just have to expect it. The ribs do work to some extent with temps rising  14 degrees albeit for very short periods of time and well below critical temperatures. On average the processor temp went up 5 to 6 degrees Celsius averaged out for the 6 hour table test which was a bit strange as the chassis temp was actually lower than the baseline datum.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

You’ve heard me describe idle load, light load, heavy load, unless you’re a gamer or running your virus software in a continuous loop on the most taxing settings, sustained heavy load is an area not many people really go into in a real day to day situation. If all your doing is internet, word or even a bit of photo editing the high loads are intermittent, very intermittent. Don’t become obsessed with driving your machines with testing software and benchmarks, all you’re doing is reducing its life expectancy. Remember, with all computers, cooler is better!

SIDE NOTE!

A laptop clogged with dust will never be cool! Keep your laptop free of dust, not only does it stop air flow it’s like a blanket as well keep your already warm parts warmer. I strip my laptop once a year to clean even the internal cooling system and the dust retrieved is disgusting. If you have a brush attachment on the Vac, use it once a month, it’s great for keyboards and the bottom of your laptop.

 Make sure it’s off, unplugged, and the battery is taken out before cleaning. If you can’t do it yourself, send it off or find someone who can. A system that has not been cleaned from new can show up to a 35% decrease in heat generated, so if your fan seems to be screaming the whole time, get it sorted!

So what are the good points.

• Comfort
• No noise
• Non-Toxic
• No moving parts
• No power required
• Almost indestructible
• Increased component life
• Easily rolls up and light weight
• Less power used for a given laptop battery charge
• A very “Green” organic crystal product that’s relatively cheap

And the bad.

• Air access to the cooling duct needs addressing to increase performance further
• Mmmmmmmmmmm!...I think that’s it!

Conclusion

The heatshift™ matt by ThermaPAK™ ships in a sturdy Ziploc bag in 13-15 and 17” and the 15” one I reviewed weighed in at a tad over 650 grams or 23 oz. There’s a choice of Black, White or pink covering all persuasions and tastes and Manufacturer quality is high. The edge is reinforced with a heavy duty nylon webbing guaranteeing years of service. The bottom is a tuff felted type material with the top a satin finished heavy wearing tight woven nylon, thermally bonded to the bottom layer creating a pin cushion effect, forming the ribs on the top face.

This product delivers on what it advertises and then some with chassis temperatures (including HDD) down more then what ThermaPAK™ claim. Although I would have been happier with the CPU and core temps performing better in the flat table tests but this was more than compensated with the loungy lizard lap test ,where I think this product will fill the bill nicely and excel, on this point alone it’s worthy of being adopted into this household. My laptop does get pretty high usage probably running 14/7 in a typical week, which works out to well over 5,000 hrs per year.  One of the reasons this laptop is still kicking Is I’ve been using an acrylic laptop cooler with USB fans for two years now, Angled at 6 degrees for better keyboard access but it sucks the battery dry without a A/C power and not lap friendly if you value the hairs on your legs, HeatShift™ is a Battery and leg friendly alternative. I’s a green product with good performance properties and I have to admit, outperforms fan based products by a good margin while remaining totally passive with no noise what so ever.

 I’ve been lucky so far with a string of quality merchandise to review that has ended up in the top 10% of their field, of course in my humble opinion, and again have no hesitation in giving it my personal endorsement to this product with the..........Camera Heaven Gold Award

 Aussie Allan