Cook breakfast with your MacBook

[schmosef]

http://consumerist.com/consumer/macbook/dang-macbooks-so-hot-could-fry-an-egg-187295.php

[Dr Mordrid]

[Jessterw]

If that was a MacBook Pro I could almost believe it, but the MacBooks do not get that hot. I'm sure it's entirely possible to cook something on the underside if you let it sit there for awhile - I could do that with my iBook I imagine (or any other laptop I've owned) - but this is just much ado about nothing.

A MacBook is damn near the same system as a MBP, save for differences in size and a few component specs, so it's to be expected that it'd be a bit warm on the lap. An iBook is, so why should there be any difference besides it being warmer. That's all ignoring that it's almost damned common-sense anymore that laptops don't belong in your lap (hence a shift to calling them notebooks more often). To be fair though, he was referring to his MBP on the whole fried crotch issue.

Shock journalism/blogging at its best

[Dr Mordrid]

My Dells maintain a CPU temp of ~33-38 C (this one's @ 36 C now) & the bottom is barely warm

[Jessterw]

Yeah, the Dells we used at my old job never had much of a heat problem in that regard. But then, that's a Dell and not another Mac notebook

[rylan]

Unless you have one of those Dells with the defective battery that gets hot and explodes

[Dr Mordrid]

Mine have high capacity Panasonic batteries. Who makes the flamethrowers for Dell?

[ZokesPro]

Mine have high capacity Panasonic batteries. Who makes the flamethrowers for Dell?

Now I don't know if they still use them, but for 3 years ago they used Sanyo's for sure.

[az]

Sanyo is very reputable in the battery business.

[Jessterw]

My Dells maintain a CPU temp of ~33-38 C (this one's @ 36 C now) & the bottom is barely warm

Happened to run across this (questionable) comparison between a MacBook and a Dell Latitude D620.

The reviewer is obviously a little biased, but his findings appear relatively accurate given the conditions. Still, wouldn't read too much into it either way.

[VJ]

Well, my Fujitsu-Siemens P1510 runs very hot. Not too hot to touch, but close (it would not be comfortable on your lap at this heat).
Most likely a consequence of the small size of it: the entire outside feels like it is built as a heatsink. When it is switched off, and it is cold outside, then this machine feels very cold. But when its running, it heats up everywhere.


Jörg

[Claymonkey]

I'm actually surprised about how hot a Pentium M laptop can get. I agree with VJ that the form factor plays a huge role though. The small businessman laptops i've supported have ALL been hot. Usually more so than the desktop replacements by far.

[VJ]

I'm actually surprised about how hot a Pentium M laptop can get. I agree with VJ that the form factor plays a huge role though. The small businessman laptops i've supported have ALL been hot. Usually more so than the desktop replacements by far.

Just for comparison, we have an older Toshiba laptop as well. It doesn't get very hot (it is a Celeron), but it has a blowhole out of which relatively hot air is pushed. My Siemens also has a blowhole, but the air coming out of it isn't very hot (at least, not in comparison to the device itself).
I suspect that major upside for Pentium M is that it can clock to lower speeds quite easily, although I must say that I have changed its default settings. In the bios, one can optimize it for battery power, but this really makes the laptop unusable (taking well over 15s to launch firefox). After changing the bios settings, the laptop never seems to slow down as much (probabely at the expense of battery life, and more heat coming from it).

Jörg