NEWLink Laptop Cooling Mat

This product is amazing and I am so happy I bought one.

My laptop is a very high spec machine ( Dell XPS M1710 ) which has an nvidia 7900 card in. When playing games it gets VERY hot (enough that the plastic has come off the hot parts revealing the solid silver metal).

Initially I had no problems with it (I didn't mind the toasty hot knees) but recently I found it was slowing down to stop itself from overheating - frame rates in games dropped from 30-60 right down to 5 when it reached a certain temperature (after about 10-15 minutes of playing team fortress 2 on high settings)

I was skeptical but I decided to invest in this product to see if I could perhaps get an extra 20 minutes out of my machine before the overheating slowed the frame rate down.

I put the mat under my laptop, and it's a very big laptop with a 17" screen, and played. I played for an hour before I got bored, and while my computer was warm, it didn't slow down once, and the fans came on far less! I was amazed that an unpowered simple mat could do this.

The mat itself is very thin, lightweight and flexible. Contrary to what others may have said, I didn't find my laptop slipping much at all, but then my laptop is extremely heavy, although I do use it on my knee. I used to use my laptop on a metal tray to help with the heat and that used to slip and slide all over the place.

The mat contains crystals, and feels like it has very coarse sand inside. The heat turns the sand into a kind of gel which helps to take the heat away. I found that even after the contents had turned into gel that it continued to remove heat from my laptop very effectively. I have never had my computer slow down due to overheating while using this product.

The bottom of the mat doesn't get anywhere near as hot as the bottom of my computer used to get, so it's much easier on my legs too.

I would recommend this product to anyone who has ever been uncomfortable about the temperature when putting their laptop on their knee, and anyone who using a gaming laptop like myself.
I also have no doubts that it will increase the lifespan of your machine, because failure rate of components increases with temperature.

I am never going to use a laptop without one of these again. This product is simply fantastic.

I purchased this item in hope that it would extend the battery life of my laptop, whilst keeping it cooler.
The mat is filled with a crystalline material, which feels very much like rock salt crystals through the cover. These crystals draw the heat away from the laptop and into the mat and whilst doing so, become softer. Eventually at their hottest, the crystals seem to become liquid, at which point they can no longer offer any cooling ability.

I have a high end Dell XPS 16, which gets very hot when running.
I have noticed an improvement in battery duration whilst using the mat. The fans take longer to come on and run for shorter periods.
However, once the mat has expended its cooling ability, the crystals in liquid form stay very hot. If left in contact with the hot running laptop, this only makes things hotter. Once the crystals have become liquid it is necessary to remove from the laptop.
In my experience this usually takes somewhere between 2.5 - 4 hours, depending on what you are running on your laptop.

I purchased 2 of these mats, one for me and one for my wife. My wife uses her laptop much less frequently, so if available I swap the expended mat for the other mat.
I have not needed to swap back to the first mat again, but I think it takes longer to cool and return to a usable condition. I would guess 4+ hours.
As the crystals become liquid, be sure to leave flat when cooling, or you will find the crystals pool to the lower section of the mat, when cool.

Many other reviews have mentioned slipping. I concur with this opinion. My laptop is large, heavy and has rubber feet to prevent slipping. The material on the side of the mat you place the laptop on, appears to be some kind of Nylon, or Polyester. Similar to a suitcase lining, or tent material. This material is VERY low friction and added to the profile of the mat surface (peaks and troughs to allow convection to move hot air around), this offers very little resistance to the laptop slipping.
I have found that even minimal movements can cause the laptop to begin to slip.
To this end, I find that the mats are not best suited to use on the lap. If used beneath the laptop on a fixed surface, such as desk, or table, etc. There is much less risk of slipping.

The additional complication I have with my laptop, is the 9 cell battery. This protrudes from the bottom of the laptop along the rear bottom edge (imagine 5 x AA batteries end to end, forming a long cylinder attached to the body of the laptop). This raised the laptop a little when on a flat surface, which is generally no bad thing.
However, this mat needs to be in contact with the base of the laptop, to be effective. With the back only raised, this restricts the amount of contact with the mat. I have tried different positions, some better than others, but it will not fit perfectly.
Regardless of this issue, it does still offer a benefit in cooling, just not as much as with a flat bottomed laptop.

Some people in previous reviews have commented that there laptop becomes hotter when using this mat. This is probably because there laptop has vents on the underside, covering these vents with a mat is at best stupid! I find it unsurprising that there laptop then gets hotter. It is possibly a bad design of a laptop to vent through the bottom as it is then not much use on a lap. I find that the mat works extremely well on my laptop and highly recommend it to other people (provided your laptop doesn't vent through the bottom).