COOLER MASTER NOTEPAL INFINITE LAPTOP COOLER
INTRODUCTION:
The Great Indian Summer has officially begun! With soaring temperatures bound to affect our notebooks and net-books, this is the right time to buy a notebook cooler.
These notebook cooling pads come in many sizes and prices vary for different brands and their specifications as well as their build quality. A stroll along Mumbai’s Lamington Road tells us the sheer number of shop keepers as well as foot path hawkers selling these cooling pads. Is a notebook cooler worth the investment and does it truly offer us any sort of advantage when it comes to cooling the laptop? Read on.
[BREAK=Technical Specifications And Unboxing the Notepal Infinite]
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:
PACKAGING:
Unboxing the Coolermaster Notepal Infinite:
The retail packing:
The specifications on the retail box:
The Notepal Infinite:
The mini USB cable and the user manual:
Cooler-master packs the Notepal Infinite like all its products, in a nice, big white box with light purple corners and like any other Cooler-master product, the Notepal Infinite is well packed. It comes with two styrofoam blocks to firmly hold the cooler in place and protect it from damage during transit. A user manual and an USB cable are included in the box. The packing is minimalist with no additional riff raff and marketing brochures. On a side note, the box is sturdy and well constructed. It can be used for transporting motherboards and other peripherals if you have a sale thread and are looking for a good box to dispatch your stuff after you’ve sold it!
[BREAK=Design And Build Quality PART 1]
DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY:
Aluminum coolers may offer better cooling by a few degrees over plastic coolers but the advantage offered by aluminum coolers is negated by the weight and price which usually doesn’t make it appealing to the user. If the build quality of aluminum cooler is shoddy or if there are still burrs due to poor machining along the edges or the base of the cooler, you would end up with torn pants or scratched legs.
The unboxed Notepal Infinite:
The rear view of the Notepal Infinite:
The groove at the base of the cooling pad for the Mini USB cable:
The base of the Notepal Infinite:
My laptop on the Notepal Infinite:
Side view of the Notepal Infinite:
Rear View of the Notepal Infinite:
The cooler I have reviewed here is black at the base with a grey aluminium mesh. The design is unique if compared to most of the generic (Read: Unbranded) laptop coolers available in the market. The Notepal Infinite comes with a 90x90x25mm fan (90mm fan)
As per the specifications, the Notepal Infinite will cool notebooks that measure 12" up to 17" inches efficiently. The body is made of tough ABS plastic and the top of the cooler is an aluminium mesh which provides ventilation for the base of the laptop.
[BREAK=Design And Build Quality PART 2]
Below the mesh and exactly at the center of the cooler is the 90mm fan. It operates at a silent 15 dBA when it is spinning. This fan is effective in making the Notepal Infinite a very good cooling pad. Flipping the laptop cooler over to reveal it’s under side, we can see four rubberized grips as well as a groove for the Mini USB cable which makes the base of the cooler more organized.
The groove for Mini USB Cable:
There are three fan speed settings which can be adjusted to provide the necessary level of cooling. The three speeds are Low, Medium and High. Beside the Mini USB, which is used to power the cooling pad, is a spare USB port. Beside it are the vents which blow out air when the fan is spinning.
The control for the fan speed settings:
The POWER button with a blue LED is located above the vents and is used to switch on the fan in the cooling pad. A couple of hooks are present at the rear of the cooling pad to cater to the cable management and prevent the blocking of the cooling vents by stray charging cables, Ethernet cables, etc.
The POWER button with a blue LED:
The hooks for cable management which help in efficient cooling:
Design Features (From Cooler-Master’s Website):
• Innovative and optimized airflow structure increases cooling area by 150% and efficiently controls noise level, compared to traditional coolers.
• Metal mesh surface for great cooling performance and stylish design.
• Ultimate thermal solution to cool down your notebook; up to 17 degrees C.
• Adjustable fan speed to accommodate your working environment.
• Ergonomic design for best comfort.
• Special design of the intake at rear side allows convenient usage anywhere, on sofa or in bed, without blocking airflow.
• 4 strips of anti-slip rubbers prevent the notebook from sliding.
• Unique design for easy cable management (hook and slot) at the rear side.
• Accommodates most notebook dimensions from 12" to 17" and especially for the wide screen.
[BREAK=Testing, Portability And Comfort]
TESTING:
Lavasys Everest Ultimate Edition was used to test the temperatures of the Notepal Infinite. The temperature sensor tool was run while using the laptop for a few hours without the laptop cooler. Daily tasks comprised of browsing the web, working with Microsoft word and excel, using Irfan-view to edit some images and listening to music on Foobar. The following temperatures were recorded after 3 hours of usage:
(TEMPERATURES OBTAINED WITHOUT NOTEPAL INFINITE)
The following temperatures were obtained after playing Need for Speed- Most Wanted with all the settings at high for about 30 minutes:
(TEMPERATURES OBTAINED WITHOUT NOTEPAL INFINITE WHILE PLAYING NFS MOST WANTED @ 1024x768 WITH ALL SETTINGS AT MAXIMUM)
My room temperature was between 30-32 degrees Celsius while conducting the tests in the afternoon. The laptop was kept on my lap with the air vents below the laptop being blocked as usual by my jeans. This is a common situation which often leads to overheating of the laptop and the gradual decrease in its lifespan.
Now after a quick reboot and with the Notepal Infinite cooler below my laptop, I got the following temperatures:
Daily Tasks (Surfing the net, working on word and excel, using Irfan-view to edit some images and listening to music on Foobar)
(TEMPERATURES OBTAINED WITH NOTEPAL INFINITE)
As the screen shots tell you, there is a difference of 8-10 degrees straight away. I would attribute this difference in temperatures to the fan as well as the design of the Notepal Infinite which allows for maximum air flow which goes a long way in keeping the laptop and its internals cool. Lower operating temperatures result in increased operational life for the laptop.
Any cooling pad which connects to your laptop using an USB port will affect your battery life by a few minutes. In my laptop, the Notepal Infinite caused a drop of 9-12 minutes in the battery life with the NotePal Infinite’s fan spinning at its maximum speed and this is something I can live with.
PORTABILITY AND COMFORT:
The Notepal Infinite allows your laptop to sit firmly without any possibility of it getting displaced due to the jerks and constant body shifting if you were to keep it on your lap. The slightly warm feeling which was there when the laptop started heating up after prolonged use was gone once I switched on the Notepal Infinite. Even sitting and writing this review in my running shorts with the Notepal Infinite on my lap has not caused me any discomfort. Some poorly made coolers and the cheaper metal ones can rip your skin. I found the slightly elevated design of the Notepal Infinite to ease the strain of typing by quite a bit. It offers you a very good typing position which will reduce fatigue and stress levels on your hands.
Is the Notepal Infinite portable? If your laptop heats up quite a bit taking the laptop cooler with you will be a priority. The good thing is that the Notepal Infinite weighs less than a kilo, 700 grams to be more specific. It is quite big but if your backpack or laptop bag has space you can easily pack it in. The build quality is good and this makes the Notepal Infinite one tough cooler. It can easily take abuse and still continue cooling you laptop. It survived an accidental 3 foot drop from my table while un-boxing it and there’s no scratch or damage of any sort anywhere on it.
[BREAK=Price And Conclusion]
PRICE AND CONCLUSION:
The Cooler-master Notepal Infinite cost me Rs.1375 with one year warranty.
For the price that it sells for, it gets the job done and hardly does anything wrong. This cooler is priced higher if you happen to check E-bay. Do shop around at your local computer shops for better deals.
PROS:
Excellent Cooling [10/10]
Excellent Pricing [10/10]
Excellent Design [10/10]
Excellent Comfort and portability [10/10]
CONS:
None
BOTTOMLINE:
FINAL SCORE [10/10]
The Notepal Infinite in action:
An excellent buy for Rs.1375. I highly recommend it to every laptop user!
NOTEPAL INFINITE purchased from:
Cooler-Master Distributor:- ACMY Systems, Management Enclave, Near Vastrapur Lake, Vastrapur-IIM Road, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad.
[BREAK=Do I Need A Notebook Cooling Pad?]
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHILE SHOPPING FOR A LAPTOP COOLER:
DO I NEED A LAPTOP COOLER?
YES! YOU DO! We must remember that a laptop offers us limited or almost no scope to improve its thermal solutions. There isn’t a possibility of modifying the heat-sink and buying a larger better heat-sink or getting a better fan like the desktop computers. With the cooling vents of the laptop usually blocked by the way we keep it on our lap or bed or any surface other than a flat board or table results in the buildup of heat inside the laptop and that often causes burnt parts or damaged motherboards. A good cooling pad can prevent this. Lower operating temperatures result in increased operational life of the laptop. Some notebook coolers go as far as providing you with a very good ergonomic platform for your typing needs. Some offer extended functionality by providing you with USB or other ports.
I HAVE A NET-BOOK OR AN ULTRA LOW VOLTAGE LAPTOP (CULV); DO I STILL NEED A LAPTOP COOLER?
This depends on your usage. If you were to use your net-book or CULV laptop for a few hours in a relatively cool or Air conditioned environment for just browsing the internet or for basic day to day tasks, you can skip the laptop cooler. If you plan on watching high definition movies or play games get a laptop cooler. If you use your notebook for processor or memory intensive tasks such as working with photo editing tools, virtualization tools, etc, buy a laptop cooler.
WHICH LAPTOP COOLERS SHOULD I BE LOOKING AT?
Expensive and fancy coolers may not cool your laptop as much something less exotic or cheaper. The key to selecting the perfect laptop cooler is to look at the size of the laptop and the surface area of the cooler because larger the surface area, better the cooling.
It is necessary to look at the placement of the vents below your laptop and corresponding vents on the surface of the cooler. It is also necessary to look at the fan placement in the cooler. Just because a cooler has 3 or 4 fans, doesn’t guarantee better cooling. Look at the build quality and the weight factors if you want a cooler that is portable.
Some the best laptop coolers available for laptops up to 15.4 inches which don’t overheat a lot are:
Coolermaster NotePal X-1 – Rs.1300
Coolermaster NotePal X-2 –Rs.1375
Targus Chill Pad –Rs.1500
Belkin L00501 –Rs.900-1000
Logitech N 100 –Rs.1400
If you have a gaming laptop or a high end professional laptop, consider buying an aluminium cooler. These are slightly more expensive and heavy which doesn’t make them very portable or comfortable for prolonged use on your lap but they offer very good cooling. I would personally recommend a few such as the Cooler-master NOTE PAL Infinity and the U-1, U-2 coolers. Zalman aluminum cooler with a 240mm fan also comes highly rated. They cost anywhere between Rs.1800-2500.
INTRODUCTION:
The Great Indian Summer has officially begun! With soaring temperatures bound to affect our notebooks and net-books, this is the right time to buy a notebook cooler.
These notebook cooling pads come in many sizes and prices vary for different brands and their specifications as well as their build quality. A stroll along Mumbai’s Lamington Road tells us the sheer number of shop keepers as well as foot path hawkers selling these cooling pads. Is a notebook cooler worth the investment and does it truly offer us any sort of advantage when it comes to cooling the laptop? Read on.
[BREAK=Technical Specifications And Unboxing the Notepal Infinite]
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:
PACKAGING:
Unboxing the Coolermaster Notepal Infinite:
The retail packing:
The specifications on the retail box:
The Notepal Infinite:
The mini USB cable and the user manual:
Cooler-master packs the Notepal Infinite like all its products, in a nice, big white box with light purple corners and like any other Cooler-master product, the Notepal Infinite is well packed. It comes with two styrofoam blocks to firmly hold the cooler in place and protect it from damage during transit. A user manual and an USB cable are included in the box. The packing is minimalist with no additional riff raff and marketing brochures. On a side note, the box is sturdy and well constructed. It can be used for transporting motherboards and other peripherals if you have a sale thread and are looking for a good box to dispatch your stuff after you’ve sold it!
[BREAK=Design And Build Quality PART 1]
DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY:
Aluminum coolers may offer better cooling by a few degrees over plastic coolers but the advantage offered by aluminum coolers is negated by the weight and price which usually doesn’t make it appealing to the user. If the build quality of aluminum cooler is shoddy or if there are still burrs due to poor machining along the edges or the base of the cooler, you would end up with torn pants or scratched legs.
The unboxed Notepal Infinite:
The rear view of the Notepal Infinite:
The groove at the base of the cooling pad for the Mini USB cable:
The base of the Notepal Infinite:
My laptop on the Notepal Infinite:
Side view of the Notepal Infinite:
Rear View of the Notepal Infinite:
The cooler I have reviewed here is black at the base with a grey aluminium mesh. The design is unique if compared to most of the generic (Read: Unbranded) laptop coolers available in the market. The Notepal Infinite comes with a 90x90x25mm fan (90mm fan)
As per the specifications, the Notepal Infinite will cool notebooks that measure 12" up to 17" inches efficiently. The body is made of tough ABS plastic and the top of the cooler is an aluminium mesh which provides ventilation for the base of the laptop.
[BREAK=Design And Build Quality PART 2]
Below the mesh and exactly at the center of the cooler is the 90mm fan. It operates at a silent 15 dBA when it is spinning. This fan is effective in making the Notepal Infinite a very good cooling pad. Flipping the laptop cooler over to reveal it’s under side, we can see four rubberized grips as well as a groove for the Mini USB cable which makes the base of the cooler more organized.
The groove for Mini USB Cable:
There are three fan speed settings which can be adjusted to provide the necessary level of cooling. The three speeds are Low, Medium and High. Beside the Mini USB, which is used to power the cooling pad, is a spare USB port. Beside it are the vents which blow out air when the fan is spinning.
The control for the fan speed settings:
The POWER button with a blue LED is located above the vents and is used to switch on the fan in the cooling pad. A couple of hooks are present at the rear of the cooling pad to cater to the cable management and prevent the blocking of the cooling vents by stray charging cables, Ethernet cables, etc.
The POWER button with a blue LED:
The hooks for cable management which help in efficient cooling:
Design Features (From Cooler-Master’s Website):
• Innovative and optimized airflow structure increases cooling area by 150% and efficiently controls noise level, compared to traditional coolers.
• Metal mesh surface for great cooling performance and stylish design.
• Ultimate thermal solution to cool down your notebook; up to 17 degrees C.
• Adjustable fan speed to accommodate your working environment.
• Ergonomic design for best comfort.
• Special design of the intake at rear side allows convenient usage anywhere, on sofa or in bed, without blocking airflow.
• 4 strips of anti-slip rubbers prevent the notebook from sliding.
• Unique design for easy cable management (hook and slot) at the rear side.
• Accommodates most notebook dimensions from 12" to 17" and especially for the wide screen.
[BREAK=Testing, Portability And Comfort]
TESTING:
Lavasys Everest Ultimate Edition was used to test the temperatures of the Notepal Infinite. The temperature sensor tool was run while using the laptop for a few hours without the laptop cooler. Daily tasks comprised of browsing the web, working with Microsoft word and excel, using Irfan-view to edit some images and listening to music on Foobar. The following temperatures were recorded after 3 hours of usage:
(TEMPERATURES OBTAINED WITHOUT NOTEPAL INFINITE)
The following temperatures were obtained after playing Need for Speed- Most Wanted with all the settings at high for about 30 minutes:
(TEMPERATURES OBTAINED WITHOUT NOTEPAL INFINITE WHILE PLAYING NFS MOST WANTED @ 1024x768 WITH ALL SETTINGS AT MAXIMUM)
My room temperature was between 30-32 degrees Celsius while conducting the tests in the afternoon. The laptop was kept on my lap with the air vents below the laptop being blocked as usual by my jeans. This is a common situation which often leads to overheating of the laptop and the gradual decrease in its lifespan.
Now after a quick reboot and with the Notepal Infinite cooler below my laptop, I got the following temperatures:
Daily Tasks (Surfing the net, working on word and excel, using Irfan-view to edit some images and listening to music on Foobar)
(TEMPERATURES OBTAINED WITH NOTEPAL INFINITE)
As the screen shots tell you, there is a difference of 8-10 degrees straight away. I would attribute this difference in temperatures to the fan as well as the design of the Notepal Infinite which allows for maximum air flow which goes a long way in keeping the laptop and its internals cool. Lower operating temperatures result in increased operational life for the laptop.
Any cooling pad which connects to your laptop using an USB port will affect your battery life by a few minutes. In my laptop, the Notepal Infinite caused a drop of 9-12 minutes in the battery life with the NotePal Infinite’s fan spinning at its maximum speed and this is something I can live with.
PORTABILITY AND COMFORT:
The Notepal Infinite allows your laptop to sit firmly without any possibility of it getting displaced due to the jerks and constant body shifting if you were to keep it on your lap. The slightly warm feeling which was there when the laptop started heating up after prolonged use was gone once I switched on the Notepal Infinite. Even sitting and writing this review in my running shorts with the Notepal Infinite on my lap has not caused me any discomfort. Some poorly made coolers and the cheaper metal ones can rip your skin. I found the slightly elevated design of the Notepal Infinite to ease the strain of typing by quite a bit. It offers you a very good typing position which will reduce fatigue and stress levels on your hands.
Is the Notepal Infinite portable? If your laptop heats up quite a bit taking the laptop cooler with you will be a priority. The good thing is that the Notepal Infinite weighs less than a kilo, 700 grams to be more specific. It is quite big but if your backpack or laptop bag has space you can easily pack it in. The build quality is good and this makes the Notepal Infinite one tough cooler. It can easily take abuse and still continue cooling you laptop. It survived an accidental 3 foot drop from my table while un-boxing it and there’s no scratch or damage of any sort anywhere on it.
[BREAK=Price And Conclusion]
PRICE AND CONCLUSION:
The Cooler-master Notepal Infinite cost me Rs.1375 with one year warranty.
For the price that it sells for, it gets the job done and hardly does anything wrong. This cooler is priced higher if you happen to check E-bay. Do shop around at your local computer shops for better deals.
PROS:
Excellent Cooling [10/10]
Excellent Pricing [10/10]
Excellent Design [10/10]
Excellent Comfort and portability [10/10]
CONS:
None
BOTTOMLINE:
FINAL SCORE [10/10]
The Notepal Infinite in action:
An excellent buy for Rs.1375. I highly recommend it to every laptop user!
NOTEPAL INFINITE purchased from:
Cooler-Master Distributor:- ACMY Systems, Management Enclave, Near Vastrapur Lake, Vastrapur-IIM Road, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad.
[BREAK=Do I Need A Notebook Cooling Pad?]
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHILE SHOPPING FOR A LAPTOP COOLER:
DO I NEED A LAPTOP COOLER?
YES! YOU DO! We must remember that a laptop offers us limited or almost no scope to improve its thermal solutions. There isn’t a possibility of modifying the heat-sink and buying a larger better heat-sink or getting a better fan like the desktop computers. With the cooling vents of the laptop usually blocked by the way we keep it on our lap or bed or any surface other than a flat board or table results in the buildup of heat inside the laptop and that often causes burnt parts or damaged motherboards. A good cooling pad can prevent this. Lower operating temperatures result in increased operational life of the laptop. Some notebook coolers go as far as providing you with a very good ergonomic platform for your typing needs. Some offer extended functionality by providing you with USB or other ports.
I HAVE A NET-BOOK OR AN ULTRA LOW VOLTAGE LAPTOP (CULV); DO I STILL NEED A LAPTOP COOLER?
This depends on your usage. If you were to use your net-book or CULV laptop for a few hours in a relatively cool or Air conditioned environment for just browsing the internet or for basic day to day tasks, you can skip the laptop cooler. If you plan on watching high definition movies or play games get a laptop cooler. If you use your notebook for processor or memory intensive tasks such as working with photo editing tools, virtualization tools, etc, buy a laptop cooler.
WHICH LAPTOP COOLERS SHOULD I BE LOOKING AT?
Expensive and fancy coolers may not cool your laptop as much something less exotic or cheaper. The key to selecting the perfect laptop cooler is to look at the size of the laptop and the surface area of the cooler because larger the surface area, better the cooling.
It is necessary to look at the placement of the vents below your laptop and corresponding vents on the surface of the cooler. It is also necessary to look at the fan placement in the cooler. Just because a cooler has 3 or 4 fans, doesn’t guarantee better cooling. Look at the build quality and the weight factors if you want a cooler that is portable.
Some the best laptop coolers available for laptops up to 15.4 inches which don’t overheat a lot are:
Coolermaster NotePal X-1 – Rs.1300
Coolermaster NotePal X-2 –Rs.1375
Targus Chill Pad –Rs.1500
Belkin L00501 –Rs.900-1000
Logitech N 100 –Rs.1400
If you have a gaming laptop or a high end professional laptop, consider buying an aluminium cooler. These are slightly more expensive and heavy which doesn’t make them very portable or comfortable for prolonged use on your lap but they offer very good cooling. I would personally recommend a few such as the Cooler-master NOTE PAL Infinity and the U-1, U-2 coolers. Zalman aluminum cooler with a 240mm fan also comes highly rated. They cost anywhere between Rs.1800-2500.
