Hardware Bistro

Product: Massive 23LX
Manufacturer: Thermaltake
Supplied by: Thermaltake
Price: 29.90USD/RM93
Launch Date: July 2010

 

There is no doubt Laptop is much preferred than a desktop nowadays due to its great flexibility, high performance and affordable price. However heat is still one of the annoying common problems for a notebook; not only slow down the PC performance but eventually shorten the life span of the laptop. Hence a proper cooling device is needed and today we are going to show you the latest laptop cooler from Thermaltake; Massive 23LX.

 

Company Profile

Started from the passion for the DIY (Do It Yourself) concepts and the desires to realize the goal of "Ideas are originated from humanity; Realizing ideas is our belief." Thermaltake Technology was established in January, 1999 and has been market to the world with "Thermaltake" brand name ever since.

Thermaltake became the number one choice for PC DIY enthusiast worldwide with its innovatively breakthrough product designs. The concept of "Quality", "Performance", and "Reliability" have been incorporated into the design of Thermaltake PC Chassis, Cooler and Power Supply to assure the components meet the highest standard.

 

Features

- Ergonomic angle design
- 2 USB ports, USB powered
- 230mm Blue LED fan
- Fan On/Off control switch
- Black metal mesh stylish design
- USB Cable storage drawer
- Anti-slip Rubber
- Supports laptop size from 10" ~ 17"

 

Specifications

Package & Contents

 

Thermaltake is a well-known computer accessories maker with their creative idea and well-made products. Same with other Thermaltake products, Massive 23LX comes with an attractive yet sturdy box in Thermaltake's theme (Black). All the product information was printed at the back of the packaging box such as features, specifications and some diagrams.

 

Besides the outer packaging box, Thermaltake Massive 23LX is wrapped by a plastic bag and two high quality styrofoams to ensure the device comes with tip top condition. No special accessories are bundled together for Thermaltake Massive 23LX except an USB cable, user's manual and a product warranty policy.

 

A Closer Look On Thermaltake Massive 23LX

 

Thermaltake Massive 23LX is a high quality notebook cooler where the fan grill is made by aluminum material for greater heat dissipation while others are made by plastic material for cost and weight reduction. Thermaltake Massive 23LX is able to support laptops from size 10" till 17"; a flexible and fabulous option. The overall dimension and weight of Thermaltake Massive 23LX are 376 x 300 x 51.5 mm and 900 grams; it isn't heavy but not ideal for carrying it around due to its thickness.

In order to distinguish clearer between Thermaltake Massive 23LX and other Thermaltake's latest notebook coolers, a comparison table is shown above. Basically all of these three notebook coolers are quite similar in term of functionality and 23mm giant fan is one of their unique selling points. The major difference between them is just the design hence the buy factor is merely based on user preference.

 

As we mentioned the major unique selling point of Thermaltake Massive 23LX is the 23mm cooling fan which is able to cool down the notebook significantly regardless of the hardware layout. Anyway in order to mitigate the irritating noise issue, Thermaltake Massive 23LX only comes with 600 RPM and 54.6 CFM where the maximize noise is only 17 dBA. Besides that this 23mm cooling fan is a blue LED fan where it enhances the overall beauty of Thermaltake Massive 23LX.

 

For maximization the cooling efficiency, the fan grill of Thermaltake Massive 23LX is in honey-comb shape which is proven as the best shape for a fan grill. In order to hold the notebook firmly on the Thermaltake Massive 23LX, rubber pads are added on at the edges of Thermaltake Massive 23LX; total eight rubber pads. Replacing this 23mm cooling fan looks impossible if the fan breaks down but it still can be done by those enthusiasts with some basic engineering knowledge.  

Most of the notebook cooler works as a USB hub as well and this is same for Thermaltake Massive 23LX. Physically there are two USB ports for Thermaltake Massive 23LX but only one USB port is usable as the other USB port is used to power up the Thermaltake Massive 23LX by connecting to the notebook. Another caring feature of Thermaltake Massive 23LX is the switches where both of the fan and lightning can be turned on/off as required.

 

In order to fully utilize the space of Thermaltake Massive 23LX, a storage hub is added at the rear panel. This storage hub is used by Thermaltake to keep the USB A cable which is an ideal storage space as the cable will not be forgotten no matter where this notebook cooler is carried to. This is a very simple idea but so far we haven't seen such feature implemented on other notebook cooler; thanks to Thermaltake R&D team with their think-out-of-box concept.

 

Something turns Thermaltake Massive 23LX to be a unique notebook cooler is its handles where both of the notebook cooler's edges come with handles. This handles allows user to carry Thermaltake Massive 23LX and the notebook around hassle-free. This feature may look funny but in fact it is quite a useful feature when you need it; we can't think of any reason why not to have it if this feature doesn't cost much. 

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

For testing out the Thermaltake Massive 23LX, we have chosen our lovely laptop; HP Elitebook 2540p. HP Elitebook 2540p is a 12.1" laptop but we found that it has no issue to work with this giant notebook cooler. However all the rubber feet are not contacted with our 12.1" laptop hence an enhancement should be implemented for next version of Thermaltake Massive 23LX likes adding additional 4 rubber feet on the notebook cooler surface for supporting 10" and 12" laptops to ensure these laptops are sitting securely on the Thermaltake Massive 23LX.

Thermaltake Massive 23LX is a plug and play device hence any notebook can be placed on top of it and start to enjoy the cooling performance improvement once the USB cable is connected. Since Thermaltake Massive 23LX is using USB A-to-A cable hence there will be no fixed USB port for connecting to the notebook; either one of the USB ports will do. 

As we mentioned both of the blue LED lighting and fan can be controlled manually by switches and basically these switches works very well as they provide responsive action. Thermaltake Massive 23LX only comes with blue LED lightning although its sibling; Massive 23CS comes with tri-LED but we still prefer single blue LED lightning which looks much elegant; anyway this is very subjective.

For your information, here is the airflow movement mechanism of Thermaltake Massive 23LX where the blue arrows are fresh air while red arrows are heated air. This 23mm cooling fan is blowing up the fresh air in upward direction from the bottom of the notebook cooler and heated air will be dissipated in between the notebook cooler and the notebook; very simple concept without rocket science.

 

Test Bed

Notebook: HP EliteBook 2540p
Processor: Intel i7-640LM @ 2.13GHz
Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM
Display: 12.1" LED-backlit WXGA anti-glare
Graphic Card: Intel HD Graphics
Optical Drive: Panasonic 9.5mm DVD RAM
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: Arctic Sound P311
Operating System: Window XP Pro SP3/Win 7 Pro
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

Here are the performance results of Thermaltake Massive 23LX where CPU-Z PC Wizard (a useful freeware) is used for this temperature benchmarking. There are total four measured sensors of our test system; HP Elitebook 2540p.

Core 1 and Core 2 are CPU temperatures since Intel i7-640LM is a dual-core CPU while DIMM and HDD are the memory and HDD. There are significant temperature improvements for both of the CPU cores; around 6 to 7 degrees. Such great results are very tempting and amazing with such quiet notebook cooler. 

However there are very minor temperature improvements for HDD and DIMM which is understandable since these area aren't reachable with the airflow of Thermaltake Massive 23LX; get blocked by the lids. Anyway the most important thing to lower down the system temperature is to have a circulated environment which solves all kind of heat issues instantly. Anyway Thermaltake Massive 23LX did a good job here and most important is it doesn't generate loud noise or the noise is barely audible.

 

Verdicts

Most of the Laptops are getting higher end and come with greater performance nowadays hence a proper cooling is really required to ensure a longer life span. However not all of the laptops do come with adequate cooling design which might due to constraints of space, size, weight, cost and so on. Choosing a right notebook cooler is able to improve the components temperature and Thermaltake Massive 23LX is not only a well-design notebook cooler but also come with affordable price. If you are looking for a suitable notebook cooler then Thermaltake Massive 23LX is one of the good choices.

 

Pros: 

+ A Silent 23mm cooling fan
+ Blue LED lightning
+ On/Off Switches
+ USB hub (prefer at least 2 usable ports)
+ Cable storage hub
+ Carrying handles

Cons:

- Only 1 usable USB port
- A bit bulky

 

Thanks to Thermaltake for providing this sample for us to review.

 

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