A Closer Look:

   This unit itself is like the Ferrari of notebook coolers, in the looks department. Bright red with a sleek look. It's actually quite light also. Surprisingly light actually. The unit felt solid enough with a quality build and tight tolerances. There certainly is a lot of information (ie. buttons) on the front panel. Let's fire it up and see how she runs!

   I think the pics are pretty self explanatory, however I have a few observations to write about. The first thing I noticed upon powering it up was how awesome it looked. Ok that one was pretty obvious. More seriously though, since this is a notebook cooler, it's only normal to observe the airflow (cooling) provided by this unit. Or, the lack thereof. Even though there is a real fancy lighted fan controls, I didn't notice any discernable airflow coming in or out of this unit. Then I noticed the specs and seen it only has a 70mm fan installed!! What the #@$#@.

I ran my hand all over this thing and could not really tell where the air was coming from or going. That concerned me a bit because I just know there's a bunch of you out there with high performance, and super-hot laptops that would just love to have this colorful cooler under your gaming laptop to keep it cool and look badass while doing it. Whelp, sorry to say, but if that describes you, you'll want to look elsewhere. This cooler isn't much of a cooler at all as compared to some more serious units we've previously reviewed here.

   I'd love to say that what this unit lacks in cooling, it makes up for in looks...but I can't. The primary function of a notebook cooler is cooling first and foremost and this unit falls short there. If the X-Wing has a more serious cooling system (fan) in it, like the Antec 200 or NZXT Cryo LX, then it would've possibly gotten my strongest recommendation yet for a notebook cooler. It saddens me that they dropped the ball on that end.

On a good note, the X-Wing is dead sexy with all those subtle blue lights across it's entire front and I'm happy to say that every button worked as it was designed too for me. The only reason I say "for me" is because I can not guarantee every button will work for everyone because of the difference in laptops and software installed. However again, for me, they worked flawlessly and looked great while doing it.

Positioning my 17" Hp DV9500T on the X-wing was also painless. It fit just fine and felt very secure with no fear of it sliding around. There is also a power button located right on the front of the X-Wing. When powered off, there is only a subtle, single red button lit.

Conclusion:

   Overall the Glacialtech X-Wing Notebook Cooler is an undisputed winner in the looks department, however not so much in the cooling department. The quality of the build and innovative features built-in to the front panel make it very user friendly. Unfortunately because of the lack of cooling power, it's very hard for me to recommend this. I just know that geeks with gaming laptops love lights and gadgets and they'll be wanting to add this under their hot laptops. However it would do little good. The cooling power is anemic. My suggestion to Glacialtech would be to dramatically beef up the cooling system with something like a large, quiet 200mm fan centered in the unit.

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