Further to my post about heat issues with the laptop I had several comments from readers (who had not posted on the blog before) and one *extremely* nice email from the uk distributor of the ByteCC laptop cooler who very kindly offered me a complimentary one due to the number of referrals my blog had passed onto them! I then had to wait a couple of days for the postal strike to ship it to me and I’ve been using it in the office for a couple of days so far.
My intitial impressions have been very favourable. With it on the desk the pc is really cool and there is NO heat felt on the laptop when iyou place a hand on the bottom of the machine. The toshiba is a bit too big to fit on the shelf as the whole laptop balances backwards if placed up against a the bottom ridge so instead it has to have the bottom ridge resting on the bottom of the laptop but this does not seem to detract from the usefulness or effectiveness of the device and it also holds the laptop at a convenient angle for typing with. I brought it home tonight to use with Kristens laptop which fits nicely on the shelf.
My initial concern was how it would work when placed on my lap as I didn’t really fancy getting my trousers or legs stuck in the fans which are placed underneath the shelf. From my experience so far this is not a problem as the fans are well protected with grids over the bottom and plastic “walls” around the side of the fan casing (as you would get in a normal pc fan). The cooler is fairly noisy and you certainly notice it when it first starts up or if you are the only one in the room with it running although its not *that* noisy and you soon get used to it. I’ve not had any complaints from the three people who sit at the arrangement of four desks in the office about the noise and in our office environment it really is not noticable.
I’d certainly recommend it if you need to keep your machine really cool and it will save your legs from getting burnt!