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Accessory Review
by Chris Lawson
Fin Laptop Handle/Stand
Developer: Fins-Up
Price: $30
Requirements: Aluminum PowerBook G4, MacBook, or MacBook Pro.
Trial: None
Pop quiz: What’s the easiest way to keep a laptop cool? If your answer
involved preserving or increasing airflow around the laptop, you get a gold star.
Apple’s laptops are real portable powerhouses, but along with that increased computing
power comes a great deal of heat. Using metal cases and advising consumers to ensure
the laptop is used on a hard surface help dissipate that heat, to be certain, but I’ve always
thought those little rubber feet weren’t doing much for airflow under the laptop when they’re
raising it off of the desk only one-sixteenth of an inch.
Fins-Up has a solution. Take one billet of aluminum, machined in the shape of a handle
and finished to match Apple’s aluminum, white, or black laptops, and four extra-long
screws, and you have the Fin, a laptop stand-cum-handle that makes it easier to carry your
PowerBook around while providing better cooling when you’re using the ’Book.
The Fin installed on the bottom of the laptop.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a handle or handle/stand combination for a laptop.
Apple built a handle, though not a stand, into the original iBook. QuickerTek developed
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Review: Fin Laptop Handle/Stand