Construction and Design
The X-Wing is a nice looking product, it can be purchased in multiple colors, the R1 is available in red, silver, white, and yellow while the R2 is available in only white and yellow. There are also multiple designs as you can purchase the X-Wing with or without the touch controls; the R1 has the full touch panel controls while the R2 has no controls. We were sent the X-Wing R1 in red.
GlacialTech gave the X-Wing a design that brings thoughts of Ferrari sports cars to mind [at least to my mind] the sleek curved edged and bright, high-gloss read combine to give an impression of speed and power. Once you pick up the X-Wing the impression fades a little as you find that it is made of plastic.
I am not saying that it is not a sturdy build, just that its feel does not match its looks. I really wish that GlacialTech would have gone with aluminum for this; a metallic feel would have maintained the sports car feel and brought the X-Wing to another level in terms of aesthetics and overall design.
The front panel controls on the X-Wing R1 are very straight forward, easy to use and lit up by blue LEDs. The R1 includes media controls for Volume, play, fast forward and reverse, stop etc. while the cooling controls allow you to switch between auto and manual fan control, a lock to prevent accidental changing of settings, and the option to switch the display from temperature to fan RPM.
The air flow design of the X-Wing is straight forward and allows for cool air to be pulled in from the sides and rear to and pushed up into the underside of whatever notebook is placed on top. As the X-Wing gets its power from the notebook, GlacialTech has added a few Extra USB 1.1 ports [three to be exact] these work great for everything but a USB powered external HDD. When I tried to plug in my Seagate FreeAgent drive the X-Wing began to have serious problems as it was trying to pull way too much power from the notebook at that point. So while the X-Wing will take up two ports and give you back one, you are limited in what you can do with those.
As with many notebook coolers you can adjust the height for improved comfort and a little better airflow. One thing that stood out as a problem was the small fan used; for some reason GlacialTech went with a tiny 70mm fan to try and pull enough air into cool your book. This just is not enough in my opinion.
Overall the X-Wing has a good design and is well built; unfortunately the 70mm fan makes all of that planning and design work of little use.
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