Hardware

Word has finally reached the public of a ‘SandForce Driven’ SSD found native inside a new release ultra portable laptop, this being the Asus UX21 and UX31 Series. The partnership between ASUS and AData will see the new AData XM21 mSATA SandForce based SSD available in both the UX21 and Ux31 Series. The XM21 will contain the SandForce SF-2281 6Gbps …

Its been some time in the making but manufacturers have opened their doors yesterday to the worlds new lines of ultra portable SSD configured laptops. You may remember our review of The Samsung Series 9 earlier this year where we were able to give you just a hint of what we think will be in store for those hoping to …

The peripheral market is filled with tons of different products, but rarely do you find one that fits everyones needs perfectly. Perhaps the pickiest of all of them is the mouse, or more precisely, the gaming mouse. There is never just one mouse that takes the cake, simply due to the fact that the nature of such devices is based …

You have your notebook resting in its standard position on your lap. Suddenly, you start noticing that familiar tingling feeling when it starts to heat up and you start counting down the minutes before you have to prop the laptop upright, or sit at an awkward angle to give it some breathing room. Aside from health concerns like developing a …

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS Lets take a quick look at the packaging. The front of the U Stand box has the typical solid white and purple colors, indicative of Cooler Masters design. There is also a large shot of the U Stand itself with a notice that it supports up to 17 laptops: On one side, we have a smaller picture …

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS (CONTINUED) I want to focus on the fans before getting to the U Stand, as I find them to be instrumental in the overall scheme: The two sides of the fans are quite different from each other. This side is the one that latches onto the back of the U Stand as illustrated by the latches on …

THE U STAND With the accessories out of the way, let’s get to the U Stand itself. It sports a nice perforated matte-black finish over a sleek aluminum base which is nice and cool to the touch: Right off the bat, you will notice a grip-strip at the top of the U Stand. This can be stripped off and placed in different …

TESTING METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS Luckily, I have two laptops to test with the U Stand. One is the 13 Dell Vostro 1400, and the other is a 17 HP Pavilion DV7-1428CA. Since both machines are not capable of gaming (especially the Vostro), I decided to run the AIDA64 stress utility benchmark, and record the temperatures from both AIDA64 and Speccy: …

FINAL WORDS AND CONCLUSION Cooler Master really hit the nail with their newest introduction into the Notepal series. The U Stand adopts much from coolers in the same family, such as the U2 and U3, while brining new improvements to the game. The U Stand offers a plethora of height options, excellent cooling performance, and a solid base of features. …

FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS Patented Configurable Cooling Fans Two patented 100mm silent fans are included and placed underneath the aluminum surface. These fully configurable fans can be used to pinpoint to the hottest areas of your laptop (i.e. CPU, HDD) for unsurpassed cooling performance. Ergonomic design Five different height settings showcase the ergonomically design for best viewing/typing angles which  allows you …