Home > Consumer Reviews > Targus PA248U Notebook Chill Pad

I picked this model out because of all the good reviews, and for the most part they're true. The unit does a decent job of cooling my 15" powerbook. I grabbed a Chill Pad (why does typing that make me think of a House Party movie?) for my girlfriend's 15" VAIO, but it still runs a bit warm (but then, the Pentum in there runs much hotter than my G4, so maybe the Chill Pad just can't keep up). Either way, I wish the units were a little wider. In a perfect world, I wish the fans weren't placed in the middle of the slab, but more towards the back, where a laptop's CPU & video chips are located. This thing is plastic, so it won't dissapate the heat as well as an aluminum one will.

Originally I rated this puppy 4 stars. I'm taking it down to 3 now, because after some typical use over the past 6 months, both of our Chill Pads are pretty thrashed. The power cord on my girlfriend's unit is falling apart, mostly around the power switch box thingie (to use the technical term). As for mine, the screws holding the back together have cracked their casings, which were rattling around in my pad until I shook them out yesterday. So the back end of the unit no longer has a flush seam. Maybe some Krazy Glue will do the trick.

I didn't drop kick this thing around, pretty standard use: brought it to the office almost daily. Used it at home as well. Took it overseas once. I'll give it 4 stars for cooling, but I'm taking 1 away for workmanship.

I have owned many a laptop and several notebook cooling pads. Cooling can potentially improve a computer's performance and useful life.

This pad has decent performance. But, it is made from cheap plastic and has design short-comings. The product pictures, and price, make you think it is made from high grade plastic or metal. I feel for anybody who ever paid the list price of $30 for this product.

Reading the reviews for this product, I realized that several key elements of this product's construction were not being mentioned.

Pros
- The fans do seem to push a decent amount of air, more than other pads
- The rubber risers allow for better air-flow under your laptop

Cons

- This product is made from low grade plastic. It is flimsy under the weight of any standard laptop
- The rubber risers which seperate this product from your laptop will come out; They are not glued in
- The rubber feet on this pad will also come out
- The fans inside can be very loud
- The 2 fan heads are poorly positioned in the center of the pad
- The usb cable is too long

For the price there are simply better alternatives. The Antec notebook cooler has a more durable aluminum top, ergonomic shape, and more quiet design. The USB connector also has an extra port.
Antec USB-Powered Notebook Cooler

As long as you don't mind the defects, this can be a handy unit for a spare or travel needs. This cooler is still worth owning if you can buy it on sale for $11 or less. Don't pay more.

Happy Shopping.

After spending four months trying to get Dell's tech support people to simply acknowledge that the Inspiron 600m has a problem with overheating while playing hi-end 3-D graphics games, I took a gamble and bought the Targus PA248U Tornado Notebook Chill Pad. At first, it only helped to delay the problem -- the computer still overheated while playing games like "Warcraft III" or "Rise of Nations". The cooling fans on the chill pad were doing a good job of cooling the center of the notebook, but the back was still getting hot. I tried lifting the back on the notebook (by setting the backend of the notebook on two hi-lighters to lift it about 1/2 inch above the chill pad to improve the airflow) and that solved my problem.

My notebook is a Dell Inspiron 600m with the following configuration:
Pentium M 725 (1.6GHz, 2MB level 2 cache)
512MB DDR SDRAM (1 Dimm)
ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000 w/ 64MB

When playing 3-D graphics games, the computer (especially the memory chip) would get very hot and the frame rate while playing the games would drop 95% (in one game, dropping from 60fps to 1-3fps). The computer never crashed, but it made game playing impossible. The Inspiron 600m is a thin notebook (1.29" thick), so it probably doesn't allow enough airflow to adequately cool off the components when pushed to their limit by a 3-D graphics game. Thank heavens companies like Targus are making products to address this issue.

Just as a note to Dell users, I talked to about a dozen different Dell tech support people over a four month period and no one would even admit to having heard about this problem. Apparently Dell has a policy of never admitting that a problem exists.

(It seems the portable lap desk and chill pad reviews are being mixed together -- this review refers to the chill pad.)

This chill pad seemed great at first: it fit nicely under my 12" display laptop (may not be adequate for very large notebooks), ran quietly, and kept the otherwise blazing-hot notebook running. I did use it constantly, but only around the house, so it sustained no additional wear from being carried around. Problem is, the thing only lasted 8-9 months, with full funtionality for only half of that. Fan power drastically decreased over time, with one fan hardly spinning at all by the end. The construction quality is just not very high.

Bottom line: there are MUCH better notebook coolers available, and you'll earn back the extra money when they don't fall apart. I recommend the Antec cooler I replaced this with -- unlike the chill pad, it features a metal surface to conduct heat, removable plug-through USB cord, cord storage on back of unit, two fan speeds, automatic shut-down when the computer is off, and moves so much air you might get chilly yourself just holding it. I know I sound like a salesperson, but I'm just so happy with the Antec over this Targus product that I want to save others the wasted time and effort in trying it.

The chill pad in the picture (silver rectangle) is NOT the model that's shipped today. The model pictured is the older model (item #21) and it was great. It was made of very sturdy plastic and VERY quietly cooled my laptop like a refrigerator. My only complaint with it was that the switch on the cable got broken.

The new ones have the exact same model number PA248U (only the new one is item #22) but is a brownish gray, curved like an hourglass, and the switch is on the pad not the cable. Targus was either dumb or deceptive on the model number. This model is a piece of junk: it apparently uses less rigid plastic, runs very loudly until the plastic heats up. Then the fans hit the inside of the housing and either quit working or make even louder scraping sounds. I bought two (thinking I was getting the original pads) and thought I'd try them out. Oddly, they both become defective right after the Amazon return date. Don't waste your money.