I'm a gaming nerd... and I always travel with my gaming laptop, but as anyone who has ever used one of these knows... well, these things get hot. That leads to performance degradation as well as a reduced long term lifespan... so, I've always travelled with a laptop cooler.
I have had a laptop cooler at home, and also one that was exclusively for travel... a lighter CoolerMaster X-series cooler that was small enough for me to easily fit in the travel suitecase that I used quite often.
However, the fan on that had died... some sort of crappy connection between the input USB cable and the fan electronics, one of the hazards of having a built in cable. Handy, but hard to fix.
I had been using the same travel cooler anyway, an elevated surface is still better than nothing... but I recently got myself a larger travel bag, and so I thought it was a good idea to upgrade my laptop cooler as well! A slightly larger version, also metal/plastic... but this one has 5 fans! One 120mm and four 80mm!
The central 120mm fan pushes a huge chunk of air... meanwhile, the surrounding four 80mm push less air, but create a higher air pressure, and sometimes the pressure is just as important as the airflow volume. So, nice to have both...
The top is metal mesh, and there is also a flip up tab that helps anchor the laptop... but I have found that the mesh is already grippy enough without needing the tab, and I don't really enjoy the idea of using something that could break if it ends up supporting too much of the laptop weight.
The cooler comes with a seperate usb cable... old A-type ones, but sturdy... and also a double headed one in case the laptop doesn't output enough power for the fans and LEDs. Most USB3 outputs would manage without a problem, but the older versions might need two output ports.
There is a fan control swivel to control the fan speed, which is sort of useful... but in actual use, I just leave it on maximum anyway. What would have been better would have been a switch for the LEDs!
... but the USB passthrough IS a definite bonus. After all, laptops are coming with fewer and fewer ports, and using one up on the laptop cooler can be annoying... and the passthrough can then also be connected up to a hub. So, one very interesting and useful design decision for an otherwise mundane piece of travel kit!
... oh yeah... the LEDs... not a fan. BaBOOM!!!!
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I used to have one of these when I was playing World of Warcraft. I don't really game on laptops anymore, so it isn't as necessary as it used to be for me. I'm glad to see they are still making them and improving on them.
Yeah, you would think that this is a bit of a solved technology... but little tweaks remain!
Are you maybe Playing "Dont starve togather", pokemon go (mobile of course) or some mmos ?
I have to get back to Don't Starve (not together...).... but I generally play FPS, RPGs, or grand strategy games on the laptop... and those can push the cooling a bit!