The Zodiac

No, it doesn’t tell your future

In August of 2005, I got my first notebook computer, an iBook G3. One of the first things I noticed was that, when using the iBook for any extended period of time, it got very warm. After some searching online, I discovered that there was, in fact, a solution: notebook coolers. From that day, I’ve found them to be an indispensable part of my portable computing experience, and I’ve been through three of them now, trying to find the perfect one. And that’s what this is about: having owned three of them, I believe I’ve found that perfect one — at least for 14″ iBooks — and I’m so impressed with it that I want to share it with you.

But first, I want to tell you about the others that I’ve owned, and why they suck.

Antec NoteBook Cooler

My first one was an Antec NoteBook Cooler I bought off of NewEgg. As my first foray into notebook coolers, it wasn’t completely awful. For one thing, it was cheap. If I remember correctly, it only cost me around $30, which was definitely within my budget. At the time, I had a 12″ iBook G3, and the Antec accomodated the iBook’s size well. It had rubber grips on the bottom, so it was actually comfortable to use on my lap. It was lightweight and completely flat, which made it easier to pack in my notebook bag. One of the major selling points for it was that it could be powered by USB, so I didn’t have to lug a huge power brick. For every notebook cooler I’ve owned, that’s been a necessity.

But the Antec suffered from a lot of things. It was generally shoddy craftsmanship. Its mostly plastic design just felt flimsy and easily breakable. There was a clip on the underside for a compartment used for cable storage, but it broke on my first try and for the rest of the time I had it I had to keep it taped closed, rendering that “feature” completely useless. The jack on the USB cable came loose after awhile, making it so that it didn’t always use the fans at full power, making the iBook run hotter.

The fans themselves became loose after awhile, and filled with dust, which made them occasionally emit the most horrendous noise. The design of the cooler was such, though, that there was no user-serviceable access to the fans, so you couldn’t clean them out or re-seat them when necessary.

The Antec’s weird, non-rectangular shape made holding it awkward. There were many times that I would drop it — with my precious iBook on top — simply because of the odd shape of the cooler. This probably contributed to the USB cable coming loose over time.

Further, there was no lip in the front to prevent the notebook from sliding off the cooler towards you. Especially when you use your notebook + cooler on your lap a lot, like I do, this becomes a very important feature. You want your notebook to stay in one place. Likewise, there were not even any rubber grips to keep the notebook from moving around on the pad, and the iBook’s rubber feet simply did not have enough friction to handle it on their own. This lack of rubber grips, compared with the overall shape of the cooler, also made for insufficient airflow underneath the iBook, and airflow is the key component of how these things cool your computer.

Even before the fans started getting gunked up and unseated, the fans were unreasonably loud. The cooler did have a “low-speed” setting for the fans, which was quieter, but at that setting the iBook was prone to getting almost as hot as if the cooler was not running at all.

The cooler eventually became completely useless because the plug for the USB cable, where it sits in the cooler, eventually was no longer able to seat at all, and the fans just wouldn’t turn on. The final straw in retiring it was getting my 14″ iBook G4, which simply wouldn’t fit on it at all.

iBreeze

After the terrible experience with the Antec, I had some ideas about what sorts of things would make a good cooler. Unfortunately, there still wasn’t one on the market that seemed to fill up my mental check list. After much searching, I decided I was going to try out the iBreeze from MacMice. I’d previously used The Mouse for years with relative satisfaction (eventually replacing it when the Mighty Mouse came out) so I felt relatively confident in purchasing one of their notebook coolers.

My first impression of the iBreeze was that it was much better at cooling. On my iBook G4, I run the MiniStat CPU Heat widget. It’s a really nifty little way to keep track of how hot your ‘Book gets. On the Antec, it would average in the upper-40s (Celsius), but with the iBreeze it would average in the lower-40s.

The iBreeze has a lip in front, unlike the Antec, to keep it from sliding off the cooler. Every now and again it would, but these would usually be when I was moving it. Plus, the iBreeze has really tall rubber grips to keep the notebook from sliding around underneath, and I think that the increase of airflow underneath the iBook is one of the big reasons why it runs so much cooler. The other reason would be the angle at which it sits, which increased airflow enough that I could even use the iBreeze to passively cool the iBook. (Although not enough to keep me from using the power regularly.)

The fans had open bottoms, making re-seating rarely needed and cleaning a cinch. I only had to clean the fans once, but it only took me about 10 minutes with a bunch of Q-tips and H₂O₂ to get them clean as a whistle.

Another big selling point was the stylish design. MacMice’s products tend to compliment Apple’s products very well, visually, and the iBreeze was no exception. The iBook just looked good on it.

But the iBreeze wasn’t perfect. For one thing, while it fit the 12″ iBook perfectly, I no longer had an 12″ iBook. The 14″ spilled over the sides, which definitely made it lose points in my book. But at the time, I couldn’t find another cooler that would fit a 14″ iBook perfectly. Also, it was more expensive, coming in at somewhere around $50-60.

Another drawback were that the fans were much louder than the Antec. And since they blew downward instead of upward, this noise was only increased whenever you set it on a surface. (Which was every time you used it.) Further, whereas the Antec had variable speed fans, the iBreeze did not. This meant that you had either loud and active cooling, or silent and passive cooling.

The iBreeze was definitely not designed to be used on your lap. The back lip would dig into my legs, which caused pain after awhile. The fans had open bottoms, making it easy for my pants or a blanket (as I frequently use my iBook in bed) to block the movement of the fans. This meant that I almost always had to have another pad or a book or some other hard rigid surface underneath the cooler in order to use it on my lap. Also, the angle of the cooler made it so that typing put much more strain on my wrists than usual, which I definitely didn’t like.

The back lip and open bottoms on the fans made packing difficult, and it was obvious that they did not design the iBreeze for travel. The entire shape was awkward, and I frequently worried when travelling that it would break inside my notebook bag. Even if I were okay with that extra worry when packing it, the problem was compounded in that it just took up more space in my bag than the Antec, which meant I couldn’t carry as much with me.

How it died: since I had to always have a surface underneath it if I wanted to use it on my lap, I was holding it, the iBook and a book and set it on the coffee table in front of me. The precarious stacking was off, and one bump sent the whole thing crashing to the floor. The iBook was fine, but the iBreeze landed exactly on the USB port, breaking it from its solder points. Since the USB cable was attached to the power supply of the iBreeze, and I suck at soldering, I couldn’t simply replace or repair the cable.

Zodiac

So it was time again to buy a new cooler. After much more research, I stumbled across the beauty which I strongly feel is the best cooler on the market: the Evercool Zodiac.

First of all, this thing is a steal at the $21 price I paid on New Egg! And shipping was free! You’ve just got to love that.

The first thing I noticed is that it fits the 14″ iBook perfectly. There’s maybe 1mm of extra room on either side, and about 70mm on the back where the iBook spills over. But that spillage is nice because it gives clearance for the monitor’s hinge. The Zodiac has really quiet fans, and they give you the ability to change the direction of the fans, which I thought was kind of neat. (It ended up not being so neat, though, as I’ll explain later.)

The Zodiac has a very sturdy aluminium construction which is great at passively cooling, and I never have to worry about it breaking. In fact, passive cooling on the Zodiac actually keeps the iBook running about as cool as the active cooling did on the iBreeze. There’s no variable-speed fans, but you really don’t need them: the cooling is just that good.

Like the iBreeze, the Zodiac has a lip in the front to keep the iBook from sliding off the pad towards me while I work. And while the Zodiac doesn’t have rubber grips to keep the ‘Book from sliding around, the rubber feet of the iBook itself grip the aluminium very well, making sliding almost completely a thing of the past.

Another great thing about it is that it’s actually comfortable to use on my lap! Despite an increased angle, the back lip is rounded at the bottom, so it doesn’t really dig into my legs as much. Also, the fans on the Zodiac are recessed and covered, making it not as easy for pants or a blanket to block movement of the fans. (It does still happen, but not nearly as often. And the angle is still shallow enough that it’s pretty comfortable to type on it.

The nice, minimalist design goes quite well with Apple notebooks. While the aluminium would obviously compliment the PowerBook G4s or MacBook Pros more, The iBook definitely doesn’t feel out-of-place sitting on the Zodiac.

Power is provided by a retractable male-to-male USB cable, which is rather a nice change from my previous coolers. And if the included cable breaks, I can still use the Zodiac in active cooling mode by simply using a different USB cable while I wait for a replacement. (Which may or may not be provided by Evercool — retractable USB cables are pretty easy to find.)

One of the coolest things, though, is that it makes it super easy to pack. Since the cable can be completely detached, there’s no need to worry about dangling cables getting crushed in transit. But the best part is that the Zodiac includes two drawers with padding inside: one for storing the USB cable, and the other for storing my USB thumbdrive. Sweet!

The Zodiac does have some drawbacks, but they’re few and relatively minor. The zodiac art on the face of it is neat, but it would have been nice to get this cooler without. Also, this thing is pretty heavy; carrying this and the iBook all day gets tiring pretty quickly.

And some last-minute advice: don’t try to unscrew the fan casing to reverse the direction of the fans. Not only will sucking instead of blowing fail to keep your notebook as cool, but the screws are in there so tight I was only able to get them out with a power drill, and in the process very easily stripped one of them and broke the plastic around it a little bit.

Final thoughts

I’ve found that coolers are so essential to owning a notebook computer that it’s curious to me that Apple doesn’t make notebook coolers of their own. With an industrial designer like Jonathan Ive on the job, I can only imagine the beauty and efficiency of whatever the result would be. My only guess is that, like the iPod, they want to build a healthy community of 3rd-party accessory manufacturers.

The problem with that strategy as it relates to notebook coolers is that, for the most part, they suck. The quality of the vast majority of them is awful; noisy, ineffective fans and lousy visual designs dominate the market. The situation is not helped by the dearth of reviews for notebook coolers; you often have to buy on specs alone, which has led to some purchasing decisions I’ve later regretted.

The designs almost never compliment the high quality of Apple’s notebook designs, resulting in a hodge-podge sort of look which bugs design-minded people like me. There is one exception to this, and that’s the designs from MacMice. “The Stand” and the “iBreeze” are, like many of their products, designed specifically to compliment Apple’s industrial design, but as explained earlier, they still fall short.

But the Zodiac really is a cut above the rest. If there was one I could feel confident in recommending to anyone, this would be it.