Belkin F5L001 Laptop Cooling Pad
by Belkin Components
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List Price: Our Price: $17.88 You Save: $12.11 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $14.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Belkin F5L001 Laptop Cooling Pad
Customer Review: Good..... BUT!!
Summary: 2 Stars
I have a heating problem with my laptop when i play demanding games so i bought this around a year ago. Here are some of the things that i beleive are pros and cons:
Pros:
1)Sleek Design and Power saver ( not battery draining)
2)It cools properly on the areas it covers.
3)Has a rising popup stand if your using the laptop on a desk which raises the laptop to a comfortable position when on a flat surface.
Cons:
1)Very small doesn't cover even 15-16 inch laptops fully.
2)Annoying back plug can sometimes shift inside forcing you to open the thing to push it forward.
3)After owning it for a while 6/10 people including myself complain that it starts making a noise thats so loud and so intolerable it becomes very annoying trying to stop the noise by shifting it or banging on it a little.
4)Fan thing gathers dust or pet hair very easily (not recommended for houses with pets or alot of dust)
5)Even if your laptop fits on this tiny platform the part thats needs to be cooled mainly the center bottom and the fan or video card corner will not be cooled properly.
That's about it i've been using this thing for about a 2 years now had to replace it 4 times because of the noise thing, I would'nt recommend this cooling pad at all from personal experience.
Customer Review: Works, but certainly not ergonomic. No point in a non-ergonomic, but good look fan, if its going under the laptop.
Summary: 3 Stars
This product looks beautiful.
But after 4 months of use, it's started to become cranky. After 7 months, the fan starts whistling and complaining. The actual design of the base was pretty poorly thought out. To make it stand on a table, you need to pull out a small support from the bottom, and the little hold that you need to insert your finger to pull out that support is located right above the fan and is made for really tiny sturdy fingers. My fingers aren't really large, yet I find it difficult to get a grip on that small hold at the back - I almost need to use my nail to pull it out and even then its hard to pull out. If you have the laptop+fan on your lap and intend to place it on a table for further use, you may need to pull this hold from the bottom while its running. But because, it's so close to the fan, you tend to get your finger in the running fan. Thankfully, the fan is plastic.
But it works. Then again, all these fans work. It was the purported ergonomic design that made me buy this and I was disappointed.
Bottom line: Not at all a very convenient product even though it looks good.
Would I buy this again after mine breaks down? No.
Look at other options - ones that work. After all, you cant appreciate the design if its underneath the laptop!!!
Customer Review: Good Product that Works
Summary: 4 Stars
This review is for using Belkin F5L001 Laptop Cooling Stand with a 15" MacBook Pro. Results on other machine may vary. I have used this daily for about a month now.
I give this product 4 stars... It works well as long as it's not in a hot environment (nothing short of a mini air conditioner would work then). It effectively cools my MacBook Pro. I run XGR (X Resource Graph) to monitor the temperature across the 6 sensors in the MacBook Pro and I easily achieve at least a 10ºF drop in temperature across each of them. Most of the time I get better than a 10ºF drop. It depends on the room temperature.
The fan 'floats' in it's mount and can be jarred. When this happens it will make noise. Just tilt or lightly tap the unit to reset the fan and the fan will operate quietly again. No big deal. When operating correctly the fan is more noisy than my MacBook Pro but much, much quieter then my Dell 510 laptop. The noise is very minimal and I doubt there is one that could be any quieter, though I haven't tried any others.
A 15" MacBook Pro rests nicely on the non-skid pads. The unit can be used both on a desk or on a lap but the 'feet' in the back of the unit will become uncomfortable after prolonged usage on bare skin. It would be nice if you could attach a pad to them when using in your lap.
Customer Review: It Works...
Summary: 5 Stars
Hey Everyone,
This product definitely works at keeping the "enclosure bottom" of your laptop/notebook cool. I presently own a 2.2 GHZ Intel Core Duo Notebook w/ 4 GB RAM by Apple (the 13" MacBook). I ran a few programs that kicked the CPU's temperature up a few hundred degrees, which triggered the heat sink fans to kick-in. Consequently, this operation would have normally brought the enclosure bottom temperature to 90 F plus degrees. However, this device kept the enclosure bottom at a "normal" operating temperature (74 F).
The fan is kind of loud, meaning it's about the same decibel level as the internal heat sink fans on my notebook, thus you'll be getting a compounded "fan" noise when both the CPU fan is running in conjunction with the "Laptop Cooling Stand". However, I can promise you that the bottom of your laptop/notebook will be cool :)
In terms of durability, this product is slightly fragile, so I wouldn't bring it outside of an office/studio environment. The stand does work, despite other reviewers critiquing this product for its inability to hold a notebook up.
Overall, I'm giving this product five stars because of its: price, ergonomics, efficiency, and most importantly, its ability to cool the "enclosure bottom" of the computer.
Customer Review: Mostly good except...
Summary: 4 Stars
There's good chance the pad will in a few weeks buzz horribly when started up. It will eventually quiet down, assisted a little by taps after a few minutes of letting it warm up. (It's some rotational instability in the bearings; once it gets out of that mode, or the lubrication changes under heat or something, it goes back to working right.)
Once it's going, it keeps going fine, even if yours drops into that mode on startup. Mine stays on 24/7 and has worked for more than a year without other problems.
If you turn it on and off a lot, it could be pretty annoying. If not, you'll be happy with it.
Very effective on cooling, at least on a table. I think a lap might interfere with the airflow.
UPDATE: experience at work shows about 20% eventually fail by going into permanent persistent buzz mode; on the other hand, there's a lifetime guarantee from Belkin, which they do honor. No receipt needed. The rub is that you pay postage back to them, and sending one cooling pad back isn't very cost sensible. (They pay return shipping.) If you use a lot of them, save up the failures until it's worth the postage to return a bunch at a time.
We have some that have run 24/7 for years without problems though.