Akasa Everest Notebook Cooler Review

Patrick Nosker August 20, 2010 0

I'm not too big of a laptop user because of three reasons: heat, battery life, and performance.  Some other minor reasons include lack of drive space and ports.  My old Dell Vostro 1500 equipped with the nVidia GeForce 8600 GT (fast for its time) gets very hot– so hot in fact that if I use it on my lap it can give me red marks from the heat.  A great solution to the heat problem as well as adding ports and potentially even drive space is the Akasa Everest notebook cooler.  

I have used a couple of notebook coolers in the past and none were even close to as functional as the Everest.  Yes, it's a bit pricey and a little bulky, but you really cannot get much better.  It's made from a large chunk of solid aluminum, has two large fans, and lots of positions.  It also fits my 15.4" Vostro perfectly.  It looks almost natural on top of it with the wrist rest nestling perfectly against the Vostro's speakers.  

The first thing I noticed after pulling the Everest out of its box was its solid build.  It is very well made and feels like a product made to Apple's standards.  I would imagine it would be perfect for your brand new black Macbook.  It has 6 different height angle positions and of course can be flat.  The fans are exposed with a very open mesh made of metal and have a fan controller for speed customization.  Perhaps the most useful feature was the 4 port USB 2 hub.

The downside to this cooler is the requirement of 2 USB ports.  This means it probably draws a decent amount of power and would thus lower battery life.  Thankfully, it's really made to be used with a power source with the different levels of height support allowing it to be used as a desktop replacement.  Just plug your keyboard and mouse in and boom– there you have a great monitor and computer setup.  You also wouldn't want to lug it around at 1.8 kg or almost 4 lbs.  It comes with a USB cable which allows the USB hub to be powered along with the fans.  You really get everything you need all in the box.  

The Everest really made me start to utilize my laptop more again.  Using it more as a desktop that I can carry around if I have to makes it more practical.  I plugged a USB keyboard and mouse in and it was a great desktop replacement.  The quiet and cool fans kept it running smoothly.  I noticed a 10º C drop in CPU and GPU temperatures with the fan on the low setting while playing Counter-strike Source.  As far as I am concerned, this product was an extremely useful addition to my laptop.  It made it practical again after weeks of no use– being replaced by my desktop and netbook.  Spring a little life back into your laptop and make it more functional and cooler in the process with the Akasa Everest.

[Akasa Everest] – $85.47

Note: I could only find one retailer who would ship to the US.  It might be a good idea to wait on better availability.

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