Belkin’s Cooling Lounge is ideal if you often work with your notebook on your lap and you’re tired of the uncomfortable warmth usually associated with this. It’s soft on the legs thanks to the padded cushion at the bottom, while this cushioning also lifts and tilts your notebook a bit to make working on it more comfortable.

The Cooling Lounge comes with the added benefit of a fan situated almost in the center of the stand. Plug its power into an available USB port and it sends a steady stream of cold air to the bottom of your notebook. Without the fan our notebooks still got hot, seeing that the Belkin does not really offer a lot in terms of airflow. But with the fan on, it’s a different story. It pulls cold air from the bottom and front of the stand, allowing your notebook to remain cool where it matters most. We found this very effective, and you can actually feel the air blowing out from the sides.

Two points of critique though. The fan is relatively quiet but still makes a louder noise than your notebook’s fans would, while the Cooling Lounge seems a bit big to carry along in a small notebook bag, seeing that it’s about 50 mm at its thickest point.  

The Cooling Lounge does not offer extra speakers as Logitech’s opulent Speaker Lapdesk N700, neither a handy pull-out mouse stand such as Logitech’s spartan Portable Lapdesk N315, but it remains an effective solution, especially if you want your notebook to remain cool.

This Belkin product is available from Spectrum Multimedia on 011-807-0707 for R799.