Bluelounge Cool Feet

Susie Ochs — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:13:00 -0500

Giving your ’Book feet doesn’t mean it’s more likely to walk away. It just won’t burn your legs--or its battery--as quickly.

We’re weirdos here at Mac|Life for many reasons--not the least of which is that some of us actually like the heat produced by our ’Books when they sit on our laps. It reminds us of sitting in the passenger seat of a car with a hot carryout pizza box on our laps, back in the days before we got lazy and started insisting on delivery only.

Our personal quirks aside, those notebook Macs get hot, and tons of products exist to help them run a little cooler (which also keeps the internal fans from running as much, saving you some battery life)--from gel pads that absorb heat to cooling stands with USB-powered fans. Bluelounge offers Cool Feet, which are four rubber feet that attach to the bottom of your ’Book with suction cups. This lets some air circulate under the computer, plus tilts your keyboard a little for more comfortable typing. You get two taller feet that raise the ’Book 1 inch, plus two shorter feet that raise it a 1/2 inch, and you can use all four at once or just two.

We stuck them easily to both aluminum MacBooks and MacBook Pros, and the older plastic MacBooks and iBooks too. But if you have trouble getting ’em stuck, Bluelounge includes four thin, clear adhesive plates you can apply to the bottom of your laptop, and then stick the suction cups to the plates.

The keyboard tilt is great, and we love how portable the Cool Feet are. You can stick each pair of suction cups together and toss ’em in your bag; they take up no room whatsoever and weigh about as much as a ballpoint pen.

Bluelounge Sanctuary

Zack Stern — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:38:00 -0500

Imagine the gadgets you think you can fit inside, then subtract one.

Our gadgets are useless when the batteries fade or we misplace their charging cables. Bluelounge’s Sanctuary elegantly solves both problems, charging and storing your electronic devices. The rounded, Plexiglas box conceals a dozen power tentacles to juice up mobile phones, PDAs, iPods, and more. But the Sanctuary is a tease for hard-core gadgeteers; its size only accommodates a few devices.

Charging cables are housed in the belly of the Sanctuary underneath the reversible platform. Compatible with more than 1,500 products out of the box (see www.bluelounge.com/ts_compatibility_list.php for the full list), you pick the few connectors you need from the 12 built-in options, snake them out to the top, and reseat the platform. If your devices aren’t supported, a USB power port is available, or you can just feed the gadget’s original wall adapter through a hole in the box.

We were relieved to have a place to charge and store an iPod, a Nokia phone, and an old Palm PDA. But, shoulder-to-shoulder, those three devices barely fit in the box. What about our Nintendo DS and Sony PSP? Or the other devices we also own but use infrequently? The Sanctuary should have offered shelter for those too.

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Bluelounge Cool Feet

Bluelounge Sanctuary