Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Laptop cooling is very important. The boost states of your hardware are tied directly to their temperature, so if your components are hot, your frequencies will start to drop, which means your performance will too. Want to prevent that? Buy a laptop cooling pad - and if you're in the market for one, give this one serious consideration. My laptop is a HP 15-CB035WM, which has an i5-7300HQ (35 watt TDP) and a RX 550 (another 50 watt TDP). The cooling solution is a twin-heatpipe design that connects both the CPU and the GPU to a heat sink array in the back of the device, where two blower-style fans force air through the heatsink to be exhausted out the rear of the device. The air is taken in through the bottom of the laptop, through vents consisting of a series of tiny holes. For my device, allowing for proper airflow is a must; if I don't have it, the fans will ramp even under light loads of browsing and watching youtube videos. This cooling pad, without the fans, is raised enough and has a very breathable mesh to allow for air to circulate. This helps facilitate cooling, even when you want to use the unit as an actual laptop. The fans provide enough active cooling for you to maintain your boost states longer - although your mileage may vary. I'm still in the process of measuring and testing, but I'm noticing anywhere from a 6-10C difference with using the cooling pad from when I am not. One thing I really enjoy is the better sound profile. With the fans at full tilt, it is more like a low hum, or hearing the refrigerator run in the other room; certainly a welcome change to hearing your laptop's fans rev up to 3000+ RPM. So let's sum things up. Pros: Quiet Helps with cooling, both actively and passively Budget-worthy Cons: Slightly bulky; inconvenient to carry around as an extra item. Blue light is always on when the fans are.