Akasa Helix Widescreen Notebook Cooler Review
Final ThoughtsThis is one of the best designed and best looking laptop coolers I have seen. Yes, they have kept it simple but it has a nice sleek design that looks like a serious accessory. It certainly works although whether it is worth having a laptop cooler, is always very debateable!
There were a few problems with this laptop cooler however, the fan is very finely balanced and if you press the top of the cooler near the middle (even lightly) the fan will start to clip the fan surround. This was unfortunately the case when I first turned it on and had to remove the fan and resecure it to the cooler – it then worked fine for a period of time. This was only the case on the highest speed setting and was not present all the time, I was not able to establish a root cause of it so for this reason I cannot give it our highest ratings as there is a design fault. Apart from this the cooler worked and certainly worked better than the Lapchilla I previously tested.
In general this cooler does work, running on Low speed it is inaudible but during High speed it is not too quiet. However, it does produce fairly impressive results as it is quite hard to cool down a laptop when you don’t have direct access to the components producing the heat.
Pros
- Will improve the cooling of your laptop
- Raises the laptop up to a more comfortable angle
- Has a Low and High speed
Cons
- Doesn’t give much cooling
- Fan catches on the surround
- Can’t be used on a lap
- Is fairly large for storage
- Is not that quiet
Is not that quiet at pros?Cooling laptop stands aren't efficient whith laptops with small amount of venting holes at the bottom of notebook. And also there is problem with distortion of air flow under laptop. (hope i wrote it clear – my english isn't good). It's better to rise laptop by placing something under. and after warranty if you don't care about look of laptop case, removing few parts of grill on intake and output can make big difference (changing thermal compound and modding laptop case gave me ~5*C delta at stress.Regards :)HeXeN
Whoops! That one slipped through the net! Cheers.Yeh, they never will be very good, in my view they are pretty pointless. I added a larger 6-cell battery to my laptop and that raised my laptop up to a nice level and has improved the cooling quite dramatically (as well as improving battery life to 4+ hours)Simon
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