Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Updated (Please see bottom): I have a Dell Studio 1535 Laptop. I've never pushed my laptop hardware to the limits before and it will still get really hot over time but not slow down. So then why would I need a laptop cooler? Well, about 6 months ago I purchased StarCraft II. My laptop's specs: 4 GB 667MHz RAM Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 2.1 GHz Dual Core CPU ATI Radeon HD Mobility 3450 256MB GPU 1440x900 resolution 15.6" screen When playing StarCraft II I needed to set everything onto low settings (shaders to low, all lighting to low, effects to low, physics off, textures to low, and run at 1280x800 resolution). Even with everything low, my laptop got blistering hot and the framerate would drop significantly to 20fps or lower in more taxing gameplay making the experience difficult to play. The heat was incredible as well. My hand rests left of the touchpad in order to hotkey and that location gets burning hot. I realized I needed a cooler. I looked between the 3 different Thermaltake coolers at the time and decided on this one. I have my USB Hub connecting my printer, mouse, and other items plugged into one of the USB ports on the cooler, while the other USB plug goes to my laptop. This way when I connect the cooler to sit down, all my devices are connected as well which is great, it is basically a dock. The cooling is also incredible on how well it improved my system. Now I can't give you any temperatures but I can tell you how drastically my experience improved. I went from running the lowest settings on StarCraft II with bad framerate drops and a blistering hot computer to being able to bump my effects to medium and physics to low (my gpu bottlenecks my computer so I still keep the graphic settings to low), my computer is cool to the touch on the underside and the spot where my hand rests is warm instead of blistering hot, and my framerate never drops below 30fps whenever I play (even during 3 vs 3) making my experience much more enjoyable and easier to manage. I highly recommend this if you want to cool down your laptop and improve performance. Heat isn't good for the hardware and most laptops can't dissipate heat very well at all. This is the perfect size for 15.6" laptops or less (anything bigger will overhang the cooler), and the 2 USB ports allow you to connect your USB dock into the cooler making the cooler a hub (you will need the USB ports on your laptop to be on the left or back, if they are only on the right you will need a USB extension to connect the cooler). Lastly, you will not need to worry about the noise of the fan, although it is powerful and large, it is very quiet. Quieter than my laptop's internal fan. Update: Now that I use certain programs like CPUID Hardware Monitor, I can give definitive numbers and shed light on an alternitive route. Withoug my cooler, playing StarCraft II. I could get my CPUs to upwards of 180*F while they would sit idle at about 120*F. My GPU would climb as high as 205*F under max stress and would sit idle at 160*F. These numbers are terrible in the computer world, especially for a laptop. By adding the cooler, my GPU would get no higher than 190*F, I cannot remember the CPU though. However, I no longer need to use my cooler and can even run StarCraft II at my monitor's native resolution of 1440x900. The thing is, my computer is 3 years old. That means the thermal paste is 2.5 years older than it should be. I opened up my laptop, removed the heatsink/fan assembly and used ArctiClean to remove the old dried out thermal paste and disgusting thermal pads from the CPU/GPU/Northbridge/VRAM. I cleaned the heatsink and dusted the fan and computer the best I could with can of aerosol compressed air. I then applied Arctic Silver thermal paste (which I had left over from two other computers that magically worked when applying new thermal paste: My Xbox 360 and a 12 year old Windows 98 dekstop that used a Slot 1 CPU). Once that was taken care of I reattached the heatsink/fan and closed it up. Be ready to be amazed... my max temperatures under max load now (when playing StarCraft II) are CPU 140*F and my GPU 170*F and this is without using the cooling pad. With the cooling pad, no difference so actually it doesn't help anymore. My computer runs cooler and no longer gets crazy hot on the wrist rests and the fan never runs max anymore unless playing a game. My idle temps are much much better too. CPU is 85*F and GPU is 127*F. That is a huge difference. So, as a recommendation. Yes, this is a great Laptop Cooling Pad, but, if you're computer is old, even only 1 year old, and it is running hot and the fan is always blasting, it maybe cheaper and much more effective to replace the thermal paste on the chips. If you do not know how to do this, seek help from a friend with tech skills or go to youtube (which is actually very helpful). Update #2: I still recommend this cooler over a year later. I have since bought a new laptop, a really high performance Clevo P150EM, which has dedicated cooling for each the GPU and CPU. The thing is a beast and is designed to cool crazy temperatures. I still use the Dell though. I don't game with it at all but I do dock it to my desk by plugging in external speakers, ethernet, a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Essentially I use it like a desktop. It is more or less my media computer now used primarily for music, internet browsing, and backing up data from my other laptop. I leave the Dell on 24/7 now with the screen down sitting on the Thermaltake cooler. Since I live in a dorm room at the moment, everything is in one room. The fan is always running and I never notice it, yet it does a great job at cooling. I haven't changed the thermalpaste in forever and don't plan to anytime soon. For what my laptop needs, it gets the job done. My current idle temps just using internet browsing: CPU 100*F (38*C), GPU 145*F (63*C), HDD 91*F (33*C), Mobo 110*F (44*C). My final summation, it all depends on your laptop that you are using. It may need a thermalpaste reapplication, it may need a heatsink reseating, it may be fine and you're worried about exhaust air (exhaust air should be hot, it is an issue if the laptop is), it may need a cooling pad, it may be a combo of things. Most gaming laptops don't need a cooling pad since they are designed to cool high temps on their own. Multimedia and everyday use laptops may need a cooling pad if they run hot, especially on non-hardware intensive tasks like internet browsing.