Akasa AK-NBC-01 Notebook Cooler (English)

[Hemispasm1442169066]

REVIEW : Akasa AK-NBC-01 Notebook Cooler

REVIEWER : Hemispasm

PROVIDED : Akasa Europe

Sugg. Price : 36.50€

AKASA AK-NBC-01 NOTEBOOK COOLER REVIEW

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INTRODUCTION<o></o>

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It’s time for another review here at PCTechnology. Akasa Europe has been kind enough to send us one of its products, this time one of its notebook cooler series, the AK-NBC-01. <o></o>

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We all know that one of the problems that arise when someone crams up a lot of hardware together to save up space, as it is the case when manufacturing a notebook, is the inevitable increase in the heat produced. Many of us have at least once come across a laptop which was too noisy to use because of the fan working overtime, trying to cool down the CPU even when just processing a doc file. Temperature is inevitably more serious of a matter when it comes to laptops due to the smaller space its parts essentially take up. So here is where a notebook cooler comes in handy. For those that have not ever seen one, imagine it as a simple pad on top of which one places one’s laptop to provide theoretically better airflow and heat abduction.

We are going to test this cooler and see how well it performs on an average laptop on a warm Greek summer day. Will its performance justify its cost?<o></o>

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COMPANY INFORMATION<o></o>

The Akasa Group of companies was founded in 1997 with offices in Taipei and London. With a management team experienced in Electronic and Electro-mechanical product development, Akasa currently has many offices like in London, Taipei, Rotterdam and Sao Paulo, establishing a big worldwide network.

The Akasa brand was launched in 2000; the name comes from a Sanskrit word meaning; atmosphere, space and the ether. Akasa's famous blue and yellow style is instantly recognized. The slogan “cool it with color” was introduced in 2002 and is now inextricably linked to Akasa products.

Akasa has been at the forefront of the Custom PC revolution, beginning in 2000 with the introduction of Extreme Coolers, for the overclocking fraternity, quickly followed by aerodynamic round cables and PAXmate sound absorption kits. Nowadays Akasa has expanded its product portfolio to system and notebook coolers, control panels, cases, modding kits, thermals and other accessories.

Akasa has outlets in Asia Pacific, Middle East, Northern & Southern Europe, USA and South America. It also has a production facility in China and OEM many products for leading brands.

More information on Akasa can be found in its official website.

REVIEW PC CONFIGURATION

The laptop we are going to use is a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M 1425 with the following specifications:

CPU : Intel Pentium M (Centrino) 745, Dothan core (1,8GHz)<o></o>

RAM : 2x256 DDR 333

VGA : ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

HDD : Fujitsu MHT2080AT (IDE, SMART enabled)<o></o>

ODD : NEC 6500A

For the measurements we used Notebook Hardware Control (for keeping track of the HDD temperatures through SMART), while we used the Akasa AllInOne front panel temperature sensor to keep track of the CPU heat changes.

Product Specs & Packaging

AK-NBC-01 REVIEW: Product Specs & Packaging

The AK-NBC-01 notebook cooler, according to the manufacturer, has the following characteristics:

From reading the specs above, one can see that this cooler doesn’t just have the looks, but it promises a lot also. The cooler is suitable for all laptops up to 15’’, even if they’re the widescreen type, like the one we will be testing the cooler on. The fact that it is made out of aluminum is not just pretty to the eye but it should help adduct all that heat generated on the back of the notebook. The two 7cm fans should also help out for that, but how noisy will they really be? The specs tell us the level will not exceed 22dB.

The cooler is also equipped with 3 extra USB ports in the back; of course one will be used for connecting the cooler to the laptop. The specs only mention “extra USB port for additional device” which is a bit strange. Another cool feature is that the whole thing is juiced up just by the USB port, meaning no extra wires are needed to power up the 2 fans.

We received the Akasa cooler very nicely packaged in a colorful carton box:

At first glance one can easily notice the existence of the extra USB ports and the fancy blue-LED USB cable which included in the package. On the back, there’s a summary of the features of the notebook cooler:

Now let’s have a look in the box and see what’s there:

The notebook cooler wrapped up in plastic and the USB blue-LED cable, as promised. On the next page, we’ll take a closer look on the cooler.

Product Photos

AK-NBC-01 REVIEW: Product Photos

On the front right we can easily distinguish the Akasa label:

Taking a closer look on the fans, we can see by the way they are placed that they are set to blow out towards the back of the notebook, rather than sucking away the air. I am not a cooling expert, but I do find this more efficient a method.

This is the way the notebook cooler looks on one of its sides. You can see that the surface is rather groovy, to leave some space between the cooler’s surface and the back of the notebook. The fans blow out the hot air along these grooves away from the notebook and cool it down. A nice touch indeed.

And now let’s see how the cooler look on the back, the USB ports and on-off switch:

Now let’s take a look on the way the whole thing looks while the notebook is placed on top and everything is operational. Notice the cool blue-LED cable which is included in the whole package:

Product Performance

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AK-NBC-01 REVIEW: Product Performance

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The notebook cooler at first look gave us a very good impression. For starters, its design plus the aluminum touch make it very presentable. To be honest, I really liked the way the laptop looked on top of the cooler too. And it’s not only beautiful but practical also; the inclination the notebook has when on top of the cooler is just perfect, it helps out a lot when typing long documents.

The fans are working at very low rpms in order to be silent but nevertheless effective. Indeed, they are somewhat quiet, but still audible in a very quiet room. In a normal environment, noise-wise, the fans will never bother the user.<o></o>

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At this point we have to mention that there is a reason why the box stated “extra USB port for additional device” and didn’t use plural for the 2 USB ports present on the back. To our surprise, we found that only one was operational! After connecting the blue-LED USB cable to the laptop, we tried to connect 2 USB devices to the corresponding ports. Only one was operational, and that was the first one being connected every single time. The result was the same no matter which combination we tried, and this was not due to malfunction because both USB ports were working as long as the USB device was connected to them first. I sincerely can not find a reason for that other than not implementing correctly the USB hub; even so, there is no reason for including a 2^nd USB port if it’s never going to be operational.<o></o>

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Now let’s go on with the temperature readings…

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TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS<o></o>

As it has been mentioned before, we used the temperature sensor from the Akasa AllinOne front panel to measure the temperatures of the CPU. We placed the sensor as closely as we could to the core, in between the heatsink and the CPU. The temperature measurements with this method might not be the most precise in absolute numbers but since it is the temperature variations that we need to pinpoint in this case it doesn’t really make a difference.

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For pressing the CPU to its limits we used S&M, which is quite known for doing a good job. Temperatures on idle were measured when the notebook was turned on, on 2 different mornings, after it had been left to run idle for 15 minutes. Temperatures on load were measured after the notebook finished running S&M for 3 consecutive hours. Room temperatures in each case were approximately the same. The sensor was not moved during the measurements.<o></o>

As you can see from the graph above, there was no significant difference while the notebook was idle (only <st1:metricconverter productid="10C" w:st="on">1⁰C</st1:metricconverter>). We did notice a significant difference of <st1:metricconverter productid="40C" w:st="on">4⁰C</st1:metricconverter> though, when we stressed the CPU, which is actually quite impressive for two slow 7’’ fans acting on a distance from the core, with plastic covers in between. I’ve seen less of a temperature decrease when replacing my <o></o>

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We also decided to measure the temperature differences on the hard disk drive. Temperatures were measured as reported by the SMART utility of the HDD. HD Tach was used to stress the drive, along with doing a disk cleanup and defragmenting, procedures which are strenuous for the hard disk drive. As you can see below there was no difference when the disk was idle and we only noticed a <st1:metricconverter productid="10C" w:st="on">1⁰C</st1:metricconverter> difference when on load. We do feel though that this depends on the place the HDD is put in the laptop, different brands place their HDD on different positions and some that have it closer to the fans will benefit more temperature-wise.<o></o>

Conclusions

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AK-NBC-01 REVIEW: Conclusions

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The Akasa AK-NBC-01 notebook cooler was, at the end of the day, a pleasant surprise. Personally, the features that I enjoyed more were its looks and the way it made typing easier and more relaxing to the hand. The one thing a bit annoying was the fact that I could not use both the extra USB ports at the same time. The blue-LED USB cable was also a nice touch.<o></o>

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To summarize all points made during the review:

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• Good manufacturing quality<o></o>
  
• Nice design<o></o>
  
• Aluminum body<o></o>
  
• Good inclination, helps a lot with typing<o></o>
  
• Supports also wide screen <st1:metricconverter productid="15,4’" w:st="on">15,4’</st1:metricconverter> screen laptops<o></o>
  
• Quiet fans (but audible)<o></o>
  
• On-Off button (so you can turn off the fans if you don’t need them)
  
• 2 extra USB ports (but only one operational)
  
• Blue-Led USB cable included<o></o>
  
• Lowers CPU temperature (<st1:metricconverter productid="10C" w:st="on">1⁰C</st1:metricconverter> on idle, <st1:metricconverter productid="40C" w:st="on">4⁰C</st1:metricconverter> on load)<o></o>
  
• Lowers HDD temperature (<st1:metricconverter productid="10C" w:st="on">1⁰C</st1:metricconverter> on load)<o></o>

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And all the above come in a reasonable price…<o></o>

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SPECIAL THANX<o></o>

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We would like to thank Akasa Europe for providing the test sample; as always we are looking forward to reviewing your products.