The tech market is replete with stuff that you wouldn’t normally place under the “required” column in your “to buy” list. Yet somehow, many products end up as must-buys even if they don’t have the same importance as say, a stick of RAM or a new display. The newest entry into my “to-buy” list is this neat little device from Choiix named the Mini Air-Through Notebook Cooling Pad, which is designed for netbooks with LCDs 7" to 10"in size.

Choiix is an off-shoot of the well-respected Cooler Master company.

Just how “unnecessary” is this device? Well before we answer that let’s see the claims that this product lists. As a notebook cooling pad, the “cooling” component is obviously an important one for the device – and the Mini Air-Through is properly equipped to accomplish exactly this. An Integrated fan, an elevated posture, and an aluminum panel are all touted as cooling components for your netbook. However, one must point out a couple of things: the aluminum doesn’t really do anything as it is in contact only with the rubber pads at the bottom of the netbook, while the fan, which draws its power from its USB connection to your netbook, is pretty weak.

A simple enough device, the Mini Air Through looks elegant in its simplicity.

Creating an air pocket underneath a device's hot bottom is always a good idea.

The elevated position, coupled with the vents around the device helps though, as far as typing position and access to cooler air is concerned. This is especially true if you use your netbook on a sofa or in bed, never a good place for fans that suck air in through vents at the bottom. Also to be fair, the Mini Air-Through has an AC power-in that may increase fan speed (we can’t be sure, as our demo unit did not come with one). The elevated position and the cooler operating temperatures derived from the somewhat weak fan (1-2 degrees lower than normal during testing at both idle and load conditions) should also contribute to the netbook’s longevity.
The testing was done with an MSI Wind installed with the 1.09 BIOS with 24% overclocking enabled, and made to run a 720p video clip while also running an adventure game. A maximum temperature of 68 degrees celcius was reached without the Choiix cooling pad, as reported by SpeedFan. With the Mini Air-Through, maximum temperature running through the same situation above was 66 degrees.

Four unpowered USB slots come handy for data transfer and low-power USB devices.

This Choiix comes with four USB connectors which behaves like a typical USB hub – in other words, the four additional ports are unpowered and are suitable for USB flash drives and low-power peripherals such as keyboards and mice, but cannot power an external drive (tested with a 250GB WD Passport) or other devices requiring more power.

The smallish fan pushes just enough air to cool an overclocked netbook by 2 degrees.

Air is drawn in by the fan mounted at the back, and passes through these vents to cool the netbook's underside.

If you think this mix of positives and negatives for the Mini Air-Through have tempered my desire to buy one, you would be wrong, as I am still enthusiastically awaiting my order for this device – it looks good, is perfect for my computing sessions on the sofa, and accommodates my extra USB components when I use the Wind netbook as an alternate desktop. In other words, it’s another perfectly unnecessary addition to my “must-buy” list, but one that I’m finding to be indispensible in my daily computing shenanigans (using this demo unit that is).

The Mini Air with an MSI Wind. Note the "just-right" size of the Choiix.

Even when open, the netbook's lid is not impeded by devices stuck into the USB slots, due to their angling.

Anyway, I have yet to test the pad using external power (through the AC power in) and I am looking forward to testing whether the USB hub becomes a powered unit and whether the cooling fan becomes more effective. As someone who likes to tweak and squeeze the most out of his netbook, this has become a most necessary addition to my tweaking activities, and I’m placing it right now under another column in my shopping list – the one with the “required” heading on it. More pictures to follow.

This view shows the USB connector, AC-in and the fan switch.

Parting shot.