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Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad review
The Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad is a premium laptop cooling pad. Its huge 5.5-inch (140mm) fan is capable of spinning at up to dizzying 2,800rpm, meaning it should be perfect for chilling your CPU during heavy workloads. Cheap it certainly isn’t, though: costing a cool $119.99 / £129.99 (around AU$190), it’s an expensive cooling pad.
However, in return for this princely sum, you get some glacial cooling. I ran a 3DMark Stress Test using our Acer Predator Helios 300 testing laptop with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. Before the test, the laptop’s ambient temperature sat at 82F / 28C; after running the stress test for 15 minutes with the Llano in place at 2800rpm, the laptop had warmed to only 97F / 36C. That 15F / 8C rise is one of the most impressive results I’ve seen in my time testing laptop cooling pads, and should definitely mean that your laptop will be remain nice and frosty during long gaming sessions.
So, on the plus side, the Llano is more frigid than a blizzard; the downside is it sounds like one, too, with its fans kicking out some gale-force noise. Ten minutes into my benchmarking tests, I used a noise level meter to gauge the sound kicked out by the laptop and the Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad set to maximum – it recorded 64dB from head height and 79dB from only a few inches away. This is much louder than many of the best laptop cooling pads, and, according to the Center for Hearing and Communication, it’s roughly the same volume as a small blender, so you likely won’t be popular using this in an office environment.
Overall, the design of the Llano is tastefully done – there are no aggressively sharp angles of the type often seen on gaming accessories, and the RGB lighting is restricted to a single, modest bar around the cooling pad’s edge; there are four lighting modes you can cycle through. Note that I did find the power cable a little on the short side: my power socket is just to the left of my desk, but the cable plugs in on the right-hand side of the device, which was more of a stretch.
Ergonomically, the Llano Cooling Pad is well thought-out, too: its slope ensure wrists are held at the perfect angle, and its three different height settings should make it easy for you to find the optimum slope for your needs. Be aware that the laptop rests do come very close to sitting exactly where you’ll want to lay your wrists, though – I’m not sure why so many brands think right below the WASD keys is the perfect place for a jutting piece of plastic; but it’s a common problem with laptop cooling pads.
Despite this, the Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad is a fantastic piece of kit, capable of delivering pretty extreme cooling – and looking good while it does it. Yes, it sounds like an idling jet engine, and getting such performance will cost you a pretty penny. However, it will do an astounding job of keeping your laptop cool during demanding tasks, so if you have the money spare, you really can’t go wrong with it.
Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad review: price & availability
- Released July 30, 2023
- List price of $119.99 / £129.99 (around AU$190)
Originally released on July 30, 2023, the Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad retails for $119.99 / £129.99 (around AU$190) on Amazon. However, it’s occasionally available for less: at the time of writing, it was reduced to $92.79 in the US – its lowest ever price. It also dropped down to £103.99 in October in the UK, so it’s worth keeping your eyes peeled for potential discounts.
At its full price, the Llano definitely comes in at the premium end of the market, dwarfing the price of affordable cooling pads such as the $19.99 / £20.99 Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad. But on the flip side, it offers far better cooling – some budget options saw our testing laptop temperatures rise by over 68F / 20C, while it was just 46F / 8C with the Llano. For high-intensity gaming or creative work, you may well find that extra spend is well worth it.
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Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad review: also consider
How I tested the Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad
- Tested the cooling pad over several days
- Measured the device’s cooling during a stress test on a gaming laptop
- Used a sound level meter to assess how much noise it made
When testing the Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad, I ran it through TechRadar’s standard benchmarking tests. First, I used a thermal camera to record the temperature of the hottest point of our Acer Predator Helios 300 with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 testing laptop as a baseline. I then ran a 3DMark Stress Test for 15 minutes with the Llano dialled up to its maximum cooling, before recording its new temperature.
I also used a sound level meter to check how much noise the device kicks out while running. Once our stress test had been underway for 10 minutes, I checked the volume of the combined noise of the laptop and cooling pad from a few inches away and from head height. I then compared this to the noise generated by the laptop’s fans alone, when it wasn’t being cooled.
On top of all of this benchmarking data, I made sure I got plenty of experience using the laptop cooler, to assess factors such as comfort, stability and ergonomics. Here I was helped by many years of experience reviewing gadgets and several decades spent gaming on laptops.
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