LEPA has announced a new notebook cooler -- the creatively named Lepad S17. This notebook cooler will serve three purposes: angle your laptop for a more comfortable typing experience, cool it, and improve the audio quality.
The first two purposes are something we find on most laptop coolers, as they are almost all angled and feature a vented base with a fan below there. The 140 mm fan in this unit will spin at speeds ranging from 800 RPM to 1300 RPM. Considering that most decent modern laptops are capable of cooling themselves, this addition should be enough to prevent most other systems from throttling.
Most notable is the built-in speaker set. LEPA mentions in its press release that "Notebook sound systems will not always fulfill the expectations of audiophiles," and while we can certainly agree with that, we doubt that any speaker solution found in a laptop cooler will impress genuine audiophiles. Still, the quality is likely still much better than what you'll get from most notebooks, so our criticism will end there.
The Lepad S17 is priced with an MSRP of €39.99 incl VAT and is already available on the European market. Expect U.S. pricing of about $40, though there isn't word on U.S. availability yet.
