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Vantec LapCool Pro Notebook Cooler Review
Date Published: 11-24-2008 Written By: Diceman Edited By: Diceman Provided By: Laptop Toys Where to Buy: Laptop Toys Discuss Article: VH Forum link Pages: 1

Introduction:

Vantec LapCool Pro Notebook Cooler

   Notebooks today are faster and hotter than ever. However they're not getting any thicker. In fact they're thinner than they've ever been. So where does all that heat go? Well, notebook manufacturers are doing their best to design notebooks that not so much vent the heat, but more so can handle the high heat environment. We all know that heat can be the death of electronics, so relieving your notebook of the heat is absolutely crucial to it's long term reliability and performance.

Today I have for you one such method of reducing the internal temps of your high performance notebook. Notice I stressed high performance when I mention this particular cooler, because this thing screams. I've reviewed many notebook coolers in the past and let me tell you; this is be far the loudest. Let's see some specs...

Packaging:

Retail Box Front	Retail Box Rear	Specs on Box
Features on Box	Inside the Box	What's Included

   Not much to say about the box other than it's a nice retail box and the cooler inside is adequately protected.

A Closer Look:

Top	Bottom	Right Side
Left Side	Rear Edge	Top Closeup

   This cooler is slab-like compared to some other coolers out there, but that's not to say it's a bad thing. I mean, the real purpose of this cooler is to sit nicely under your laptop so nothing more than a slab is really needed. There is two 120mm fans inside this unit that will draw hot air from the bottom of your notebook.

On the Vantec site and the retail box, it says this is aluminum and plastic. There is little aluminum, which is the top slab, where as most of it is made from plastic, albeit high quality plastic. The two rails you see on top are tacky and are there to grip your notebook and keep it from slipping.

Installation & Testing:

   Here I use my trusty 17" HP DV9500T High Performance notebook. I have dual 120GB 7200RPM hard drives and it's Intel Core 2 Duo so it's got the goods to be considered one of the hotter laptops out there. Fortunately this Vantec LapCool Pro has dual 120mm Fans. Unfortunately, the fan control is completely useless. There is absolutely no difference between low, medium and high settings. What's that mean? It's LOUD! ALL THE TIME!

Got Room on the Left...		Got Room on the Right.
Fan Low	Fan Medium	Fan High

My 17" laptop fit reasonably well on this unit, as advertised. The cooling fans move a good bit of air out the back vents on the cooler, however as stated above, it's quite loud. However not loud like squealing or whistling, just the whoooosh from fan blades and air moving.

Conclusion:

  So does it cool? YES! Is it Quiet? NO! Would I personally use this on a day to day basis? probably not since it's a bit of an overkill. However I would use this on something like a gaming notebook and if I was gaming a lot causing it to heat up considerably. This would be ideally suited for someone that goes to notebook gaming LAN's or even just sits in your bedroom on your gaming notebook playing away for hours. If you game with a headset, that would be even better since the whoosh coming from this cooler would be drowned out by your fraggin. So for someone that absolutely needs top notch cooling and cares little about the noise, this cooler is for you. For the casual notebook user, I'd suggest looking for something much quieter.

The last possible issue is that this cooler needs to be plugged into the wall and can not run just off the notebooks USB ports. This is fine if you're not moving the cooler around much, but sacrifices portability if you're a mobile user. If you like what you see, check out Laptop Toys for this cooler and many more products.

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