Performance
The Dell laptop that I used for testing usually keeps itself at a moderate temperature, but naturally we are going to push it a little bit here. With laptop coolers I use two applications in 15 minute cycles.  The first test is taking a temperature at full idle after 15 minutes, using SpeedFan to take the temperature.  The second test is maxing out all four cores on the CPU using MaxCPU for 15 minutes and taking a temperature reading.  The third and final test is repeating the test with the laptop cooling fan running.

Before we even discuss the chart above it is important to make one very important note about laptop coolers.  Your mileage will vary.  They are highly dependent on how your laptop is constructed and how the ventilation is designed.

You will notice that the NotePal X-Slim did net us a 3.5 degree Celsius reduction in temperature.  This means that overall the laptop cooler did indeed help reduce the overall temperature.  During normal usage when you only have spikes in temperature periodically, this will help remove the excess heat buildup quicker.  It was also very quiet.  I couldn’t hear the cooler over the internal laptop fans.