Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim review
The Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim is an elegant laptop cooler. It falls under the budget category with its $ 19.99 price tag. It is relatively difficult to find good laptop coolers in this price range as good parts cost more money. Cooler Master tries it with the NotePal X-Slim, the smaller sibling of the much more expensive NotePal U3 Plus. Does Cooler Master usually take it like the company or is this a non-starter? Let’s find out.
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What is the Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim?
The Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim is the cheapest option in the NotePal range from Cooler Master. It’s also one of the thinnest. It has a single 160mm fan that can push 60 CFM. The body and frame are made of plastic and the top of the cooler is covered with a thin metal grille. The design is sleek and minimalist, but otherwise inconspicuous.
Recognition: Joe Hindy / Android Authority
The USB cable is firmly connected. In addition, the cooler has a USB pass-through: an admittedly difficult feature to find at this price point. The Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim also has two tilt options. You can pop out your feet to tilt the laptop or keep them closed for the flat experience. The addiction isn’t offensive in any way and should work for most people.
Otherwise, the cooler is pretty inconspicuous. It’s completely hidden from most laptops, with only small pieces sticking out of the sides. Cooler Master has support for 17-inch laptops, but mine had a serious overhang in the back. So, those with larger 17-inch laptops should consider another product.
There are no lights of any color and no fan controls. The 160mm fan hums at the same speed all the time. In my tests, it is louder than my laptop fans when idle, but quieter than my laptop fans at full tilt. That was it. We really appreciate the USB pass-through, but we would also have preferred the fan speed controls.
Using the Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim
This is not a rocket science. You place your laptop on the cooler and connect it with the permanently attached USB cable. There is a USB pass-through, but only with USB 2.0. We recommend using it for a mouse or similar peripheral device. The fan spins by itself so you don’t have to do anything. Those betting that their larger laptops will fit may need to adjust the placement to make sure the fans are actually blowing air in the right places.
Recognition: Joe Hindy / Android Authority
How well does the Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim work?
I have the Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim with my Asus ROG G731GW 17.3-inch gaming laptop with 16 GB of RAM, an Nvidia GTX 2070, an Intel i7-9750H, a 500 GB NVMe drive and a second 500 GB SSD tested. The vents on my laptop are on the top left and right. The 160mm fan is aimed at the center of my laptop so my air vents are indirectly cooled regardless of my position. Still, I did my best to get as much air into the machine as possible.
Recognition: Joe Hindy / Android Authority
We carried out a total of four tests with the Cooler Master NotePal U3 Plus:
- BIOS test – – BIOS optimization is often very bad. We’ll see if the cooler can keep up.
- Windows 10 idle – – Once the laptop has fully started, we test the cooler to see if it affects idle temperatures. We then leave it idle for ten minutes to make sure it can hold these temperatures.
- CPU stress test – – We use Intel XTU’s native stress test because we can easily identify things like temperature, whether it’s thermal or power throttled, and average CPU clock speed. We ran the test for ten minutes.
- A game from Halo Wars 2 – – Halo Wars 2 is a surprisingly tough game, and my Asus ROG G731GW temperatures often climb into the mid 90 ° C range, with GPU temperatures in the mid 80 ° C range. It is a good benchmark for a difficult game on a powerful slot machine.
- Something to consider – – In the following explanations, I refer to power throttling and thermal throttling frequently. With thermal throttling, the laptop will slow down the CPU speed to cool off. The power throttling limits the CPU to its base TDP and prevents it from consuming additional (boost) power. We expect laptop coolers to at least prevent thermal throttling.
The laptop used Windows Balanced for all tests. We haven’t changed any settings to play the tests. The laptop cooler was obviously at its maximum setting for the highest amount of cooling. The temperatures were recorded and double-checked with HWMonitor, Asus Armory Crate and Intel XTU.
Without further delay, here are the results of the tests.
| exam | CPU temp | GPU temp | Fan speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BIOS without a cooler | 50C | N / A | 2800 rpm | |
| Idle in Windows 10 without a cooler | 45C | 39C | 2400 rpm | |
| CPU stress test without a cooler | 85C | 42C | 6400 RPM (max.) | Gas after 60 seconds, thermo gas after 90 seconds. CPU speed throttled by 3.2 GHz |
| A game of Halo Wars 2 without a cooler | 90C | 80C | 6400 RPM (max.) | CPU peaks up to 96 ° C, GPU peaks up to 84 ° C. |
| BIOS with cooler | 50C | N / A | 2800 rpm | |
| Idle in Windows 10 with cooler | 39-41C | 37C | 2400 rpm | |
| CPU stress test with cooler | 80C | 42C | 6400 RPM (max.) | Gas after 90 seconds. No thermal throttle recognized. CPU speed throttled from 3.6-3.7 GHz |
| A game from Halo Wars 2 | 86C | 80C | 6400 RPM (max.) | CPU peaks up to 92 ° C, GPU peaks up to 81 ° C. |
The Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim didn’t do a terrible job, but it’s far from the best. The biggest difference was a 6C swing during the idle test. From there, 5C dropped out during the CPU stress test and 4C during the gaming test. The more my laptop worked, the more trouble the NotePal X-Slim had to keep up. The cooler works objectively as the numbers show. It just seems to do its best job with lighter loads on lower spec laptops.
Still, there are some encouraging numbers. No thermal throttle was found on the cooler during the CPU stress test – – an improvement over the performance of the laptop without a cooler. In addition, the CPU with the cooler stayed at 3.6-3.7 GHz during the stress test if it were to shut down to 3.2 GHz without it. It stays relatively warm, but still helps to get a little more strength out.
What I liked about the Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim
- The sleek design looks really good in almost all settings.
- It’s light and easily portable for planes, coffee shops or your office.
- The price of $ 19.99 is quite cheap for a laptop cooler.
- There is USB pass-through. We always give a thumbs up for that!
What I didn’t like about the Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim
- Since there is no fan control, the 160 mm hums at a constant speed.
- The cooler struggles with higher workloads on high-performance laptops.
- It definitely didn’t match my 17-inch laptop very well. I had to adjust the laptop several times to make sure the fan hit as much of it as possible.
Is the Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim good?
The Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim is average. We recommend this device mainly for devices such as MacBooks, Ultrabooks and Netbooks. Believe it or not, this is actually an excellent cooler for other devices like routers. You can plug it in, forget it’s there, and it helps dramatically with devices that don’t, but shouldn’t, have a fan. The fan is not very loud and therefore does not add much to the surrounding noise.
My 17-inch laptop is clearly hanging off the back of the NotePal X-Slim
Recognition: Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Those with high-end slot machines should definitely look elsewhere. The more pressure I put on this thing, the less it cooled. It’s just not designed to pump air into a powerful laptop. It helps a lot more for devices that naturally run hot when idle and need extra airflow, compared to laptops that run hot from putting stress on them.
Continue reading: The best laptops to buy in 2020
Fortunately, it only costs $ 19.99. That makes it a great budget option for people who want something that looks good and is cool enough to take off the edge. Just don’t expect miracles and you should be happy with this one.
