Dell Inspiron 6000 on Lapinator Plus w/ Mousitizer
Introduction:
Ever since I bought my wife a new laptop,
she's become accustomed to using it while sitting on the couch with the kids.
She'll usually play online games with the kids and sometimes, it's for hours.
That's a long time to be sitting with a hot laptop on your legs. Not to mention
it's really not the most comfortable way to enjoy spending time online with the
children.
However, with the massive popularity
in recent years of laptop computers, along with the evolution of power (which
creates heat) infused into them, the laptop accessory market is really getting
huge. Laptop desks is one such accessory and are plentiful on the market,
but very few are practical and even fewer are large enough to enjoy.
These laptop desks are touted as the
coolest on the market because of addition of Thinsulate material that resides
between your hot laptop and your cool legs. "Thinsulate™ blocks 95% of laptop
Heat!" or so they say, but real world performance is what I'm concerned with.
As a little bonus, Lapinator sent me
a brand new product (not on their site yet) called the Mousitizer. It's a very
handy extension to the lapinators. It's made to slide onto either side and
support your external pointing device, should you be using one. And you should,
who the hell can navigate with their index finger on those little laptop
squares? heh. I'll be giving you a long look at this nifty gadget too that just
seems to really push these products over the edge into the "must-have" category.
Features and Specs:
Let's take a closer look at what
makes up these two laptop desks.
Lapinator
Lapinator
Plus
Thinsulate™
blocks 95% of laptop Heat!
Thinsulate™
blocks 95% of laptop Heat!
Only 11 ounces (13 x 12 x 1 inches)
Only 15 ounces
Keeps your Laptop cooler
Keeps your Laptop cooler
Comfortable and Stable
Comfortable and Stable
Ergonomic - helps prevent CTS
Ergonomic - helps prevent CTS
Slips into your laptop bag
Great for those 17" notebooks
Use it anywhere!
18 x 12 x 1 inches
Thinsulate Ultra™
Insulation
The Lapinator™ uses
3M's Type B Thinsulate™ insulation as the main barrier to the heat generated
by laptop computers. The Lapinator employs Type B Thinsulate, typically used
in footwear, which is pre-compressed and will never lose its ability to block
the heat. The cross-linked molded foam bottom also acts as an insulator. We
tested the Lapinator using a Dell Inspiron running on the Lapinator for an
hour sitting on a wooden desk in a 70 degree room. The top of the Lapinator
reached 125 degrees, however, the temperature between the Lapinator's legs and
the desk was a cool 73 degrees! Only 3 of the extra 55 degrees could make it
past the Lapinator!
Ventilation
The
Lapinator provides two levels of ventilation.
First, in
addition to the insulation, the Lapinator delivers
more airspace between it and your laptop than any
other "in your lap" product. That space is created by
two 3M self-adhesive bumpers that lift the back of
your laptop 1/2 an inch off the Lapinator's surface.
The combination of the non-conducting plastics and
added air space maximizes heat dissipation.
This
ventilation is especially critical for the many
laptops whose fan vents heat directly through the
bottom! One of our customer's bottom venting Hewlett
Packard laptops would simply turn itself off when it
go too hot! The Lapinator solved her problem.
The
second level of ventilation is provided by the
Lapinator's offset "legs" that lift the insulation up
and off of your lap. This space created between your
lap and the Lapinator permits body heat to dissipate
keeping your lap extra cool!
The Surface
The Lapinator's durable
polyethylene top provides a non-skid surface that still allows for easy
laptop position changes during use. For those laptops without their own
rubber feet (older Compaqs), or if an extra measure of stability is desired,
please use the self-adhesive bumpers which prevent any movement. Though the
Lapinator's surface may distort a little bit during use as it dissipates the
heat, it's melting point is well over 200 degrees.