Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad Review

We purchased the Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad so our reviewer could put it to the test. Keep reading for their full product review.

If you use your laptop for playing games or running high-performance apps, then you’ve probably seen it get very warm and kick on its potentially loud internal fans. However, the built-in fans can only do so much to dissipate the immense heat built within, try as they might. That’s where laptop cooling pads come in, blasting additional cool air into your laptop to help take down the internal and external temperatures.

Kootek’s Laptop Cooling Pad isn’t the cheapest option around, nor is it the most premium—but it’s effective and sells for a reasonable price, and is large enough to accommodate larger laptops with 17-inch displays. A clunky height adjustment system is the main drawback, but it doesn’t stop the Kootek pad from working as expected.

Design: Clunky, but it works

The Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad is a larger unit, measuring nearly 15 inches wide, 11.8 inches tall, and about 1.4 inches thick, with a weight of 2.6 pounds. It’s heavier and bulkier than the lightweight TopMate C302 Cooling Pad, for example, and feels more durable as a result.

It’s built for laptops with screens between 12 and 17 inches diagonal, with a wide metal grate on the surface to help dissipate heat as the five fans blow onto your laptop. Most of the rest of the build is plastic. Each fan has red LED lighting for an added glow to the pad.

Two flip-up, padded stoppers at the bottom of the surface help keep your laptop in place even when you have the pad angled, thanks to the height adjustment system. Granted, that system is easily my least favorite part of this cooling pad.

Essentially, there’s a loose metal bar hanging from the main unit of the cooling pad, and you’ll slot that into one of six ridges on the bottom stand to prop it up. The system doesn’t feel quite as sturdy as having flip-out legs, and it’s loud and awkward in execution. It works and it provides finer-grain height adjustment levels, but it feels like a clunky solution for a tech accessory.

There are two buttons at the back of the pad: One button controls the large, central fan (4.72 inches), while the other controls the four smaller fans (2.76 inches each). I’m not sure why you would choose to use only some fans at any given time, since they’re all quiet, but the option is there if you want it. You’ll also find two USB-A ports, meaning this cooling pad functions as a hub for plugging additional accessories into your laptop.

Setup Process: Very straightforward

The Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad doesn’t require any software or its own power unit to function. Simply place it under your laptop, adjust the height as desired, and then plug the built-in USB cable into your laptop to power it on. As mentioned, you can control the fans using the buttons at the back of the pad, and the USB ports can be used for additional accessories.

Performance: Cool and quiet

I tested the Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad with the Razer Blade 15 (2019), featuring an Intel Core i7-9750H processor with 16GB RAM, along with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (6GB). It’s a solidly powerful gaming laptop, and I put it to the test with a couple of popular games as well as a graphics benchmark test.

I recorded the internal temperature using NZXT’s CAM app and the external temperature with a infrared thermometer, first with the laptop by itself. After it cooled down, I tested again with the cooling pad equipped the whole time.

In racing game Dirt 5’s built-in benchmark test, the Razer Blade put up an internal processor temperature of 184 degrees Fahrenheit and external temperature of 117 degrees, but peaked at 169 degrees internal and 107 degrees external with the Kootek pad equipped. The average frame rate was nearly identical between tests, with no significant difference from the use of the cooling pad.

Meanwhile, I saw a peak internal temperature of 196 degrees when playing Fortnite, along with an external temperature of 118 degrees. With the cooling pad equipped, I saw a slightly lower internal peak of 192 degrees, although it mostly hovered in the 160 to 170-degree range during testing. The external peak with the Kootek pad was 106 degrees. Curiously, I saw the exact same numbers with the Heaven graphics benchmark test with and without the cooling pad: 162 degrees internally and 109 degrees external.

All told, the Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad made a solid effort in lowering the temperature of the Razer Blade 15 while playing Dirt 5 and Fortnite, although the cheaper, dual-fan TopMate C302 cooling pad saw slightly better overall results. Your experience may vary depending on your laptop of choice, however. All the while, the Kootek pad stayed pretty quiet in stark contrast to the Razer Blade’s own very loud internal fans.

Price: Entirely reasonable

At $26 from Amazon, the Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad is a reasonably-priced option with solid performance and the ability to accommodate larger laptops. There are cheaper options out there, as well as some with additional features such as temperature sensors and additional fan controls, but Kootek’s device delivers good functionality for the price.

Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad vs. TopMate C302

As mentioned above, the TopMate C302 is a lighter, simpler cooling pad option. It’s designed for laptops up to 15 inches in size and isn’t quite as thick or heavy, but it gets the job done with effective cooling and straightforward design. Kootek’s pad offers an additional USB port for accessories, though, and allows for more height variance than the TopMate’s basic pop-out feet.

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