ThermaPak HeatShift Laptop Cooling Pad

If you have ever used a laptop or notebook computer for an extended period of time, you know that they can get hot. Really hot. Hot enough to toast your legs – or at least make it very uncomfortable to continue using the laptop on your lap. The heat will also reduce the lifetime of your internal laptop components and make a trip to the local PC repair shop a much more likely event.

So companies like Thermapak have designed innovative ways to keep your laptop running cool, and keep your legs from getting burned to a crisp. The latest ThermaPak 17" HeatShift Laptop Cooling Pad uses a new design that incorporates a passive cooling solution to keep laptop temperatures down. So, with no wires and no fans, let’s see if the HeatShift Cooling Pad can really keep out the heat.

Design

At the heart of the Thermapak HeatShift Cooling Pad is the phase changing material (PCM) inside the pad. This material is essentially a crystal compound known as Sodium Sulfate Decahydrate Na2SO4.10H2O, which melts when heated and acts as a phase change cooler. So, the heat from the laptop is absorbed by the crystals and they change from a solid crystal into a liquid. Once the laptop is turned off and no further heat is generated, the liquid changes back into a solid once again.

The top of the cooling pad is made of a nylon / plastic material and has grooved channels, which are used to channel air flow away from the laptop. This is the second design aspect that is used to keep your laptop cool – but keep in mind that there are no fans built into the cooling pad to keep air moving.

The bottom of the pad is made of a slightly rougher plastic material, and provides more adhesiveness to keep the pad in place when sitting on a table or desk. Additionally, the pad is flexible enough to be rolled up or folded for transport.

Package	Overhead View	Back View

Features

• Cooling Pad Size: 17 inches
• Color: Black
• Better Functionality than USB Fan Cooling Devices
• Cools Entire Laptop (Not Just Certain Sections)
• Uses No Fans (Completely Noise-less)
• Grooved Channels (for Enhanced Airflow)
• Ultra Slim Design (For Increased Portability)
• Comfortable, Lightweight & Portable Self-Cooling (No Need for Refrigeration!)
• No Additional Power Necessary - Allowing a Longer Lasting Laptop
• Environmentally Friendly
• Heavy Duty, Durable, & Maintenance Free

Performance Testing the ThermaPak HeatShift Cooling Pad

All of the testing of the ThermaPak cooling pad was used with my Dell 1525 laptop. It usually does not suffer from overheating, but it gets very warm especially during extended use in the warmer spring and summer months. So it provided a good test of how well the cooling pad performs.

The internal laptop fan is running approximately 30% of the time during these warmer months, even under light usage of web surfing and emailing. When I multi-task and play music, run a virus scanner, play videos, etc. the fan is normally running 50-60% of the time. So it is obvious that the laptop is generating quite a lot of heat – especially when multi-tasking.

To test the HeatShift pad I took CPU temperature measurements at idle and under load, with the laptop sitting directly on a desk first and followed by the laptop sitting on the HeatShift pad. Idle measurements were taken after the laptop had been powered on and running for 30 minutes. Load measurements were taken after the laptop had been running 3Dmark06 for 30 minutes. All tests were run two times on separate days, and then the values were averaged.

Test results showed that the ThermaPak cooling pad kept the laptop at a slightly cooler temperature under idle speeds. Under load, the ThermaPak provided a hefty drop in temperatures of 7 degrees Celsius. These results show that the ThermaPak does exactly what it is designed to do – keep your laptop cool – and it does so effectively.

Ergonomics

From an ergonomics standpoint, the ThermaPak has a few nice points and one area where it really struggles. It is soft and comfortable for use on your lap, but the top of the pad is quite slick. Whenever I shifted my weight around while sitting, or moved the laptop and pad from one location to another, the laptop would invariably slip around the pad. I found myself always having to realign the laptop into the proper position on the pad, which quickly became frustrating.

A bonus with a passive cooling solution such as the ThermaPak is that literally no noise is generated by the cooler. Zero, nada, zilch. So it is easy to forget that you are even using a cooling pad when you have the ThermaPak underneath your laptop, as it is completely silent.

Side View		Air Grooves View

Portability

The easy portability of the ThermaPak is a plus point. It can be rolled up or folded to fit easily into a laptop bag. I was easily able to fit it into my laptop bag for transporting to and from work or for traveling. Additionally, with no moving parts and no cords, there is almost no chance of damaging the pad during transport. This is another plus point in the portability department.

Finally, with no power source needed, you are much less likely to run out of battery power while using the ThermaPak with your laptop. This makes it a much friendlier travel companion than other cooling pads which require a USB port to power their fans.

ThermaPak HeatShift 17" Cooling Pad

The bottom line with the ThermaPak HeatShift Cooling Pad is that a unique design yields an effective cooling solution for your laptop. The test results clearly show that the ThermaPak efficiently transfers heat away from your laptop, which keeps it running nice and cool.

At about $35 online price, the ThermaPak is slightly more expensive than some other competing products, but is well within the average range of laptop cooling pad prices.

The fact that the ThermaPak does its job without any moving parts or power source is quite impressive. It is really nice to know that your laptop battery is never going to be drained by using this laptop cooling pad. The only real gripe I have is the slick surface. It does not inspire confidence to have your laptop sliding around whenever you move it, and this is the biggest draw back of the pad.

Pros: Effective at cooling laptops, no moving parts and no power source required, easy to transport.

Cons: Slick surface does not keep laptop firmly in place.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Special thanks to our friends at Xoxide for providing this item for review.