I was asked to review a laptop cooler. I responded in the affirmative, wondering what there was to review. A laptop cooler is a laptop cooler, but I do have a hot-running Toshiba that’s a productivity workhorse — though I don’t use it for gaming. Sometimes, on cold winter nights, I would watch a movie in bed and have it warm up the bed nicely. So I had a suitable test subject.

Oh, but what a laptop cooler this was. I am used to noisy flimsy coolers I’ve bought at office supply stores, but the Cryo S is a prince among laptop coolers.

First, the weight: When the box arrived, my first thought was ... “What’s in this? A brick?” The Cryo S by NZXT is a cool behemoth of 3mm-thick, black-brushed aluminum, crafted to tilt laptops ergonomically upwards and handsomely appointed with rubber-feet landing strips and pads to prevent slipping of laptop or damaging of desktops. Made to fit up to 15” laptops, the Cryo S accommodated my Toshiba Tecra A8 15.4” just dandy.

The Cryo S is not just a pretty face. The choice of aluminum is a good one as the material is a good heat conductor. It absorbs and dissipates heat quickly. The rubber landing strips actually lift the laptop off the surface of the aluminum to further enhance airflow.

Two speed-adjustable 120mm fans whirred quietly when I plugged it in. Powered either by USB or AC adapter, the laptop cooler has two additional USB ports for additional functionality. It functions so well that the laptop fan, which often sounded like a miniature leaf blower when the laptop got hot, never hit the high-pitched, high-speed, I’m-over-heating-here whine. Even at the highest speed, the fans are remarkably quiet. It’s helped, I’m sure, by the sturdy construction — hence minimal vibration. I peered at the underside but didn’t actually remove the fans to see if they had rubber washers to dampen vibration and sound.

Considering that this seems to be designed to be a stationary cooler and not something to be placed on your lap or folded up to be carried around, I was surprised to find that there isn’t an on/off switch. The speed dial is just that and does not have an off-click to it. So, it’s either leave it on to suck up power or unplug it whenever you’re not using it.

All things considered, the Cryo S is an excellent laptop cooler, and despite not having an on/off switch, hits all the top notes. It works like a dream. The fit and finish are excellent, and it is marvelously quiet and understatedly elegant in design. The Cryo S can be purchased at all the usual suspects for about $45, and I recommend it to anyone with a high-performance or hot-running laptop computer.