Eumax Titan Notebook Cooling Pad

Reviews: Cooling

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Bradford Day
Kurtis
ioCombo
Mar. 3, 2004

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Quality Check

As mentioned earlier, the Titan Notebook Fan Pad is lightweight. This is no doubt do to the fact that the entire unit is made from plastic. The top slots are quite flimsy and can be pushed into the rotating fans rather easily. As a basic durability test, I carried the cooler with me to work in a backpack for one week. Nothing that I did to the cooler in the course of that week seemed to effect the Titan's mechanics. But, as a simple drop test, I let the cooler fall about 3 inches onto my knee. After 3 drops, I was able to get one of the fans to make an unpleasant grinding noise. Turning the unit off and back on cured the noise and the pad has worked fine since. After repeated drop testing, I could not get the problem to re-occur.

The cooling pad didn't drastically effect my normal laptop typing routine, however it will raise your notebook's resting height about .5". Unfortunately the slight, almost unnoticeable resting angle does little to remedy any typing problems that may arise.

The cooling fans are nicely hidden from the user. No wires or motors are in plain view. Barely a whisper can be heard from the fans when in operation. Even at the highest RPM setting I had to place my ear over the pad to catch a sound. But the amount of air they push is negligible. At the high fan setting I wasn't even able to blow a Post-it note off the large side air vents. It just sat there staring at me as if to say "what exactly are you trying to do here?" With the same Post-it I could see that the fans were drawing air in from the top cooling slots, but not at an overwhelming rate. With a top speed of only 2600 RPMs, perhaps somewhat faster fans are in order. This of course would raise the noise levels but might up the cooling capacity.

Actually using the cooler on your lap requires the correct positioning. It is easiest to use while seated upright as opposed to reclining or with knees perched above waist level. As long as your notebook has rubber pads on the bottom it shouldn't slide around too much when held level. When the cooler rests at a steeper angle, however, your laptop will have a tendency to slide off. Perhaps a little Velcro tape would solve this problem? Due to the unit's miniscule weight the Fan Pad is barely noticeable while a top your thighs!and it keeps them cool as well.

Conclusion

Well, the Titan Notebook Fan Pad does exactly what Titan claims it can do. However, I can't help thinking that a higher-powered laptop might not be cooled as well as an older Toshiba. No performance gain was noticed while using the Fan Pad and the styling left something to be desired. Titan's product is effective but not at the extreme end of the spectrum. If you are having severe cooling problems with your current laptop, then the Titan Notebook Fan Pad probably isn't for you. But, if you are looking to keep your old, reliable laptop nice and cool then take a gander at the ol' internet and see what kind of deal you can dig up on the Titan.

Pros

Super quiet
Lightweight
Slim, portable design
Variable fan speed settings

Cons

Kinda not pretty
Somewhat flimsy
Only average cooling capacity

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Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Testing
Page 3: Quality Check & Conclusion

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