Top-Rated Laptop Coolers for Optimal Performance

A cooling pad for your laptop can help prevent overheating when gaming and performing other demanding tasks. The best laptop cooling pads have adjustable fans and can fit a variety of laptop sizes.

Havit HV-F2056 Cooling Pad

Best Laptop Cooling Pad Overall
$28 at Amazon

Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad

Best Budget Laptop Cooling Pad
$25 at Amazon

IETS GT500 Powerful Turbo-Fan RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

Best Laptop Cooling Pad for Gaming
$89 at Amazon

Targus Dual Fan Lap Chill Mat

Best Portable Laptop Cooling Pad
$40 at Amazon

Thermaltake Massive 20 RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

Best Laptop Cooling Pad for Bigger Laptops
$62 at Amazon

What to Look for in a Laptop Cooling Pad

Laptop cooling pads come in various sizes, build qualities, and feature sets. It’s important to sift through each model’s specs to determine which will fit your needs the best.

The basic premise of a laptop cooling pad is a chunk of plastic or metal with a fan inside of it. This gives a direct line of airflow to your laptop while also allowing hot air to escape as you run whatever processes you need, whether that be coding, video editing, gaming, or something else intense.

Some pads offer multiple fans to hit each air vent on your laptop, while others stick with a single blade large enough to cool your machine. If you need a ton of airflow, get one with multiple fans.

You’ll also want to make sure you can adjust the fan speed. Casual users will likely be okay with whatever default speed comes with their cooling pad, but anyone who needs to get some serious work done will benefit from dedicated controls to set the exact speed they need to cool down their laptops.

It’s also helpful to look for a model that lets you adjust your laptop’s angle. Not only is this better for posture and varying workspace sizes, but it also helps wasted heat from your laptop to flow out easier. You’ll also want to watch out for the amount of USB ports each cooling pad gives you; some only ship with one or two, while others can give you an entire external USB hub for connecting more peripherals.

Of course, it’s also great to shop for something fun; by fun, we mean RGB lights. Many modern cooling pads offer LEDs that surround their borders, giving you a futuristic aesthetic that’s hard to beat compared to pads that don’t offer them.

Below, we’re highlighting five of the best laptop cooling pads you can get, from premium picks to budget offerings to gamer-ready rigs.

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Best Laptop Cooling Pad Overall: havit HV-F2056 Laptop Cooling Pad

havit

If your laptop overheats frequently, your productivity will surely tank, but thanks to the havit HV-F2056 Laptop Cooling Pad , you can now beat the heat. This robust cooling pad is designed for 12-15.6-inch laptops (and some 17-inch laptops), game consoles, routers, tablets, and other electronic devices, and it is available in black-blue , black-red , and blue .

The havit HV-F2056 Laptop Cooling Pad is well-built, featuring durable legs and a metal mesh housing three fans rotating at 1300RPM to keep your devices cool. At such a high speed, the HV-F2056 is surprisingly quiet, allowing you to use it even at night in shared apartments or the library.

Measuring 14.9 x 11 x 1.2 inches and weighing 1.5 lbs, the cooling pad is slim, lightweight, and portable enough to carry around whenever you’re out and about. Once set on a desk or table, you can adjust its height to a comfortable, ergonomic angle. This is great for gaming, typing, or even livestreaming.

What’s more, it features two USB-A ports where you can attach external peripherals such as your mouse, keyboard, or headset stand. It also features LED indicator lights that let you know the working status of your cooling fan, which is very handy. However, only one switch controls the fans and the LED lights. If that’s not a dealbreaker, this is one of the best laptop cooling pads you can buy.

Best Laptop Cooling Pad Overall

Havit HV-F2056 Cooling Pad

$28 $40 Save $12

The havit HV-F2056 Laptop Cooling Pad is a great option for those looking for a quiet, effective way to cool their laptop. It features a durable build, two USB ports, and three fans that rotate at 1300RPM. It is also lightweight and portable.

$28 at Amazon

Best Budget Laptop Cooling Pad: Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad

Kootek

The Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad is an excellent choice if you’d like to save a few bucks. It comes with a lot of the same features as the TopMate, like the six adjustable heights, twin USB ports, and a sturdy design with a metal mesh overlay.

Inside, Kootek includes five fans and LED lighting, and the pad itself can fit laptops up to 17-inches (although it’s primarily geared toward smaller machines). The pad is also pretty portable, given its compact form factor.

Unfortunately, you can’t directly control the speed of the fans on this cooling pad, with options instead to turn off one or four of the fans if you don’t need a ton of airflow. There aren’t any fancy bonus features, making this a very basic cooling pad. If that’s all you’re looking for, it’s a solid package, especially given its sub-$30 price.

Best Budget Laptop Cooling Pad

Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad

$25 $33 Save $8

If you’re looking to save a few bucks, consider this sub-$30 option from Kootek. It comes with plenty of fans to keep your laptop cool, and it offers six height adjustments.

$25 at Amazon

Best Laptop Cooling Pad for Gaming: IETS GT500 RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

IETS

For the gamers out there, we recommend the IETS GT500 Powerful Turbo-Fan RGB Laptop Cooling Pad . The name is certainly a mouthful, and it may as well be given the significant capabilities of this cooling pad.

Instead of a bunch of tiny fans underneath a metal net, IETS went with a single, super-sized fan that can spin at a staggering rate of 5,000 RPM. This creates a huge amount of airflow that’ll keep the most powerful gaming laptops nice and cool during heavy gameplay. There’s also plenty of room for heat dissipation from your laptop, a detachable dust filter to protect the fans from getting dirty, and an infinite variable speed so you can run the fan as fast as you need to.

Of course, the pad also comes with RGB lights around the sides, offering seven adjustable heights to get the right angle. In addition, IETS includes three external USB ports for your accessories.

The only downside to this cooling pad—besides its price tag—is the fan itself. It’s very loud. At maximum RPM, it can reach up to 65 dB, which is very loud. If you can look past that, for any gamer with a 13 to 17-inch laptop, this cooling pad is a great pickup.

Best Laptop Cooling Pad for Gaming

IETS GT500 Powerful Turbo-Fan RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

Gamers should look no further than this cooling pad from IETS, which comes with an incredibly powerful 5,000 RPM fan that’ll cool just about any gaming laptop you can find.

$89 at Amazon

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Best Portable Laptop Cooling Pad: Targus Dual Fan Lap Chill Mat

Targus

If you need a cooling pad that’s portable enough to take anywhere, check out the Targus Dual Fan Lap Chill Mat . Its sleek design is 2.2 inches thick and 2 lbs in weight, making it slim enough to fit in a backpack alongside your laptop. Speaking of which, Targus says it can fit up to a 17-inch laptop, but it’s primarily designed for laptops around 13 to 16 inches.

This cooling pad has four USB ports, which is a lot given its compact size. Inside are a set of velcro straps so you can keep your cables tidy, and there are four adjustable height levels to get the right angle.

If there’s one downside, it’s the dual fan design. Since it’s only two individual units, you won’t get the same amount of cooling as some other pads, which might be necessary if you do a lot of super-heavy work on the go.

Luckily, the metal construction will help dissipate heat easily from your laptop, and you can adjust its speed depending on how much airflow you need. Still, if you’re looking for the most powerful cooling pad on the market, this one isn’t it.

That being said, this is still an excellent option if you need something to take on the road that won’t get in your way.

Best Portable Laptop Cooling Pad

Targus Dual Fan Lap Chill Mat

This cooling pad from Targus makes for a great option if you value portability the most.

$40 at Amazon Lenovo

Best Laptop Cooling Pad for Bigger Laptops: Thermaltake 20 RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

Thermaltake

For the folks out there with huge laptops, we recommend the Thermaltake Massive 20 RGB Laptop Cooling Pad . It’s designed to accommodate laptops with up to 19-inch screens, so you should be good regardless of the size of your machine.

The cooling pad comes with a steel mesh and plastic design, with a 256-color RGB light strip around the sides that supports all kinds of lighting settings like Wave, RGB Spectrum, Pulse, Blin, and Full Lighted.

There are three height settings to adjust the angle of your laptop, which isn’t as many as other cooling pads but is still nice to see. A single fan inside can spin up to 800 RPM, making this one of the slower options on the market but still enough to keep your laptop cool.

The biggest downside is the lack of extra USB ports. All you get is a single port used to connect to your laptop to give it power. As long as you’re already okay with the IO on your laptop, this is a pretty sweet cooling pad that’ll fit nicely with the rest of your setup.

Best Laptop Cooling Pad for Bigger Laptops

Thermaltake Massive 20 RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

For laptops in the 17-inch to 19-inch range, this cooling pad from Thermaltake will be right up your alley.

$62 at Amazon

FAQ

Are cooling pads bad for laptops?

Cooling pads can be bad for laptops if they’re not used properly. For one, they can blow more dust and debris into your laptop if they aren’t cleaned regularly. They can also act as a temporary solution for a larger issue with your laptop; if your machine is regularly overheating, a laptop cooling pad can only help so much in keeping it running smoothly.

Do laptop cooling pads improve performance?

Laptop cooling pads can certainly improve the performance of your laptop. If it starts to get noticeably warm while you’re working or gaming, your CPU and GPU can begin to throttle, causing your machine to slow down. A cooling pad can aid in maintaining good airflow to your laptop’s components while dissipating excessive heat, which in turn will give your laptop the boost you need.

Can a cooling pad replace a laptop fan?

No. While it may seem like a good idea to use a cooling pad if the fan in your laptop is broken or malfunctioning, it won’t offer the same level of airflow or heat dissipation as the internal fan, regardless of how powerful the cooling pad is.

Can you use a cooling pad with a laptop on your lap?

Most cooling pads can be used on your lap, but it’s important to ensure there’s good ventilation for both the pad and your laptop. If you’re wearing sweatpants or have a blanket on, it can hinder airflow and produce more heat, which will limit the effectiveness of the cooling pad and cause your laptop to begin throttling.

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