Razer’s next trick: Smart laptop cooling pad and tactile seat cushion

Laptop cooling pads are stupid. At least Razer seems to think so. Last weekend, the company announced what it calls a “smart” cooling solution that will keep powerful laptops running at their peak.

Unveiled during the company’s RazerCon 2024 digital show Razer Laptop Cooling Pad It includes dynamic fan control, a pressure chamber to trap cool air, and a system of interchangeable frames to support different laptop sizes from 14 to 18 inches. If that sounds premium, it is: This universal laptop accessory costs $150, roughly five times the price of most competing products.

However, for this cost, Razer promises a superior experience. The center chamber is claimed to be more efficient at retaining cool air, which is then circulated by a high-speed 140mm fan at up to 2600 RPM. The result: up to an 18 percent reduction in CPU and GPU temperatures. During the company’s demonstration to the media, two identical 15-inch 3080 Ti MSI laptops were tortured with Prime95 and Furmark running on loop simultaneously. On the laptop without a cooling pad, the GPU temperature was hovering around 80°C; The temperature of the graphics card on Razer’s Laptop Cooling Pad remained at a much breezier 68°C. Wow! A representative later said the company saw a drop of up to 20°C on High settings for some games, as well as lower CPU usage on a laptop cooled by Razer’s stand.

The pad also includes quality-of-life touches; If you turn on smart cooling, the pad automatically balances performance with noise, so you don’t have to make adjustments yourself. You can choose presets or create personalized fan curves in Razer’s Synapse software. A dust filter is included to facilitate maintenance.

And of course, if you’re worried it’s missing, Razer also adds Chroma RGB lighting to the front of the pad, which also doubles as a status indicator. You’ll be able to switch between three different smart modes for different lighting profiles and fans via buttons on the side of the unit. Also, as you might expect, you won’t be using batteries to power this device; expect to plug it into the wall via the AC adapter instead.

Another thing Razer has revealed is something that will shake the world; Razer FreyjaA tactile seat cushion that will literally rock your world. First introduced as a CES concept called Project Esther, Freyja will shake your back (and back) in response to movements in the game.

When I sit down to turn my insides Hogwarts LegacyA headset optimized for Freyja, different vibrations shook different points on the pad. Buttons on the side of the accessory let you adjust the strength of the noise, with more granular per-panel settings via Razer’s Synapse software. The most obvious choice is to let the pad push against your jeans on the highest setting. Why else would you pay $300 for this?

At launch, 20 games will directly support Razer Freyja, including one game from a series beloved by PCWorld editors.PC Building Simulator 2. (Woo.) In addition to partnering with development teams, Razer is also working on an integration SDK for the Unity, Unreal, and GameMaker video game engines. For games where a game developer is working with Razer, the vibration signals sent through Freyja will be more complex and world-tuned. In all other games it will be based on directional cues in the game’s audio. You can change the haptic profile assigned to audio cues to match the input for movies and TV, as well as game genres like FPS and racing, for example.

For most gamers, the Razer Freyja may seem overkill; But a chair accessory that offers new cues, promotes better posture, and provides a gentle massage can be worth several hundred dollars. We will see.