REVIEW: two fan USB-powered laptop cooler
Shipping:
Received it right away. The product was shipped in another box rather than having a shipping label slapped onto the original product box.
Description:
I will oversimplify the description to avoid writing a ton of words. Imagine an acrylic "Z" shape with the ends of the "Z" short and the slanted vertical part of the "Z" long. One of the two short legs of the "Z" is shorter than the other; this shortest leg is closest to you. By having the shortest leg close to you, the laptop keyboard is tilted upwards at a nice angle. The acrylic is thick and doesn't flex under the weight of my heavy Inspiron. Each of the two fans is a dc brushless fan by Young Lin Tech Company Ltd, Model DFS601505L, 5volts at 1.1 watts. They get power by tapping the USB power lead. These fans are screwed into the acrylic and have no fan guards. This means that the laptop cooler must be used on top of a hard surface. If used on your lap or soft surface, well, you should note that the fan blades are completely exposed on the bottom....
There is a mini slide switch on the back along with a USB socket so that it doesn't use up your USB port if your laptop has only one port (a thoughtful feature). The hole for the switch is rather unprofessional as it looks like it was drilled and then hand-filed (jaggy and lots of file marks). The USB cable is rather short; it barely reaches my Dell Inspiron's port. If you have a laptop with the port on the left side, you will need to extend the cable as it is so short it will only reach ports located on the rear or the right side of the laptop case. The usb socket provided is one of the cheaper ones that doesn't "click" when you push the male connector in; all you feel is a "sliding" action as you push the connector in.
There are 8 plastic feet about 5mm tall to hold the laptop off the surface. This allows for a small but effective air space for the fans. The fans are quieter than my laptop's own cooling fan. The placement of the feet leaves something to be desired for Inspirons as they are located in bad positions: right where the door lids are on the Inspiron's bottom. By sliding the laptop around, I found a location where the plastic feet would not push against the delicate parts of the laptop's bottom which are the lid covering the video card, and the lid covering the memory slots. The lids aren't meant to support weight and excessive pressure might push them into the electronic parts or traces and cause a short (inspiron lids have a metal shield on the inside...).
Operation:
All you have is a on/off slide switch. Because there are no guards on the fans, you must operate on a hard surface because the two fans are exposed underneath.
Testing:
Before connecting to my dear laptop's single usb port (if it burns out, I am screwed), I did testing with a powered usb hub connected to the laptop. That way, any stress would be to the hub. I turned the unit on and off quickly many times via the slide switch and no problem occurred from surge current by the fans. So, it seems pretty safe. I didn't test with a self-powered usb hub because from experience, large power loads make other connections to the hub unreliable.
Overall:
I would buy it again at the bargain price. It cools quite well due to air flow across the bottom of the laptop. It is quiet.