I get to play with so many notebooks and netbooks that I feel I get a pretty good picture of the technology used for these mobile computers. One of the areas in which notebook technology has taken a big leap in a short period is in the area of thermal engineering. It wasn’t that long ago that an important thing to consider about a new notebook model was how hot it got when running for a length of time. You probably remember those articles that surfaced describing how road warriors ran the risk of a low sperm count due to having hot notebooks in their laps for extended periods. My how times have changed in this area.
I was futzing around in my office today with several netbooks and notebooks and it struck me how long it has been that I even thought about how hot a notebook got while running. One of the reasons that notebooks were always big and thick in the past was to allow them ample room for air circulation, otherwise the notebook would get too hot to run safely. That doesn’t seem to be a factor any longer, and I’m no engineer so I have no idea why that might be, but it’s definitely the way things are. Thermal engineering has definitely improved by leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, and we’re seeing the results of that advancement across the entire notebook space.
The buzzwords in the notebook arena are no question “thin” and “light”. We are seeing thin and light notebooks being produced by all the major players in the notebook space and are even starting to see them cross over into the uber-small netbook area. These notebooks are so thin and small that there can’t be much room inside the devices for air circulation, so it’s obvious that other strides in heat dissipation have come to fruition. These strides are the primary reason, component size aside, that it is possible to make small, thin notebooks that run cool enough.
I’m sure that processor advances account for some of this; they obviously run much cooler than earlier models did. That alone can’t account for the advances, though, as other notebook components that are heat generators are largely the same. We have pretty much the same hard drives as we had in the past, and we even have more memory in today’s laptops than in years past.
I can’t remember the last time I tried a notebook that felt too hot to use safely. Even netbooks with small forms run cool, and I never even think about heat when I evaluate them. This is why OEMs are releasing thin notebooks right and left, and if you pay attention, you rarely hear reviewers discuss heat. It is just a non-issue these days, which is wonderful.
So why is this? I’m interested to hear from those who know about these things what has improved heat dissipation so that it’s something we consumers don’t think about? I’m sure that notebook designers think a lot about this — I don’t want to imply they don’t — but what is it in their hard work in this area that is working so well? Inquiring minds want to know.
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