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Cooling Off In Redmond
by Paul McGoldrick
Microsoft Hardware should be an oxymoron, but it’s not. The Group was formed in 1982 and shipped its first mouse in 1983. It was a mice only operation through 1994 when the Group shipped that – impossible for 90% of us to use – ergonomic keyboard that required totally politically-correct typing.
Since then it was optical mice, gaming mice, and keyboards until the first Microsoft webcam was introduced in 2006.
Now Microsoft has announced that in July 2009 it will be shipping coolers for notebooks. The technology, if there is any beyond a blower just moving air around, has not been disclosed, but the unit – which will fit under the notebook – is just under 1.25 inches thick and is slanted so the keyboard will be tilted slightly upwards.
For an expected retail cost of $29.95 it doesn’t look like the cooler is actually attached to the notebook, which strikes me as odd because the time you really want the bottom of your machine to be cool is when it is on your lap in an airport departure lounge. There will be some kind of cable management clip to hold the USB power cable in place.
Considering all the designer colors that Microsoft has and will be offering for its mice – olive, emerald green, frost white, eggplant, marine blue, garnet, pink, purple, and sapphire, among them – it is perhaps disappointing that the cooler will only be available in black or white. Mind you, on reflection, when you cannot see it anyway because it is under the machine, why bother to even give that choice?
Apart from the additional noise (have you ever turned off all the machines in your office and basked in the quiet…) is Microsoft actually sending us all a subliminal message here?
Where does all the heat come from in your notebook? Well, if you’re a PC operator a lot is probably being generated by all the chatter of Windows collecting stuff from memory, sending it back there, cycling the CPU more and more. A lot is probably also coming from Intel with that faster and faster CPU which really helps you along in your daily use of Word. (Don’t you find that a 1.6 GHz processor makes you type so much faster than a 250 MHz one?)
Is Microsoft pre-warning us that Windows 7 is going to generate even more heat and that we had better buy this cooler in advance so that we can prevent future heat burns on our upper legs?
Maybe we should all buy a Lenovo desktop PC. The company won a Product of the Year Award from us in 2007 and the last review of one of their products was here in May 2008. They are available for about $100 in India and have no cooling fan. Or, maybe, we could save $29.95 by waiting for the $10 Indian PC that is supposed to be coming.
Either way, I am happy that Microsoft is not sitting on my lap. Hardware or not… Cooled or not…
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