Palmrest paint and temp questions.

I swung by the apple store recently, and checked out their 15" mbp (since the 17" wasn't/isn't in store yet). I put my hand over the palmrest to check out the keyboard layout and that particular laptop's left side palm rest area was pretty darn hot!

This brought up 2 concerns:
1) With the heat and the skin/oil contact with the aluminum surface, will that ruin the paintjob faster? Hell, is there even a paintjob or is the silver color the aluminum's natural and only color?

2) Regardless if the paint comes off or not, is there a way to make it cooler and more comfortable to type/game on? For those that play fps games or WoW, we all know our left hand is pretty much in the same spot, and if our wrists are constantly getting a spa treatment, it's not going to be very comfy. I know there was that ilap whatever thing you place under the laptop to diffuse the heat from concentrating on your laps, so I wonder if there's something like that for the hands.

 

There are skins and extremely tough clear protectors for this issue. On the issue of paint, I believe there is not paint, just a treatment/clear coat as it is refined. You will have some residue, but you can usually wipe it off with little issue. My G2S has a 50% aluminum palm rest that cleans up nicely.

 

OP:
The current-gen Macbook is not silver paint - it's real, finished aluminum. The color will stay the same, but it may appear to darken a bit from dirt etc that rubs off your palms - just wipe it with a damp cloth.

 

The palmrests on my older MBP started to darken. I couldn't seem to remove the discoloration. I havn't had this problem on my newer MBP (early '08, the revision before the unibody). However, the paint has worn off on the button that controls the latch (however this button no longer exists on the newer unibodies). I've never had a problem with the palmrests getting warm. The hottest part of the notebook is by the screen hinge (where the cpu and gpu are). The hard drive and disk drive in comparison produce much less heat.

 

the mac was probably hot because it's a display unit which has had many grubby hot and sweaty hands on it

 

no, the mac was hot because it was probably on the 9600gt chip, which i find increases the temperature of the palm rests quite a bit. if you find that your grubby and sweaty hands are raising the temperature of aluminum above 37.0 C then you should probably visit a doctor...

also its probably the case that people leave a ton of apps running on the display models which causes the CPU to heat up a bit.

as for the palm rest discoloration issue... i've been using my unibody for ~5 hours per day since mid-October and have had no change in color.

 

So does this mean if I were to game with a macbook, I'm going to have to deal with the hot palmrest area? Is there nothing I can put there to alleviate the problem?

 

maybe you can get a case for the mac

 

A case? How would that work? Isn't the purpose of cases to protect from scratches and less so from heat?

 

I saw one with a type of leather case the other day... I dunno if it worth something or does any good...

 

some cases actually help with the heat problem

 

Link away! Or at least throw out a name or something so I can go google it up myself.

 

Well wouldn't rubber act like an insulator, keeping the heat in, and not dissipating it?

 

Oh ok, just post a link when or if you find it.

 

I dont know much about protecting the palm rest. I personally believe that it has lots to do with each user "sweat" glands.

But as far as casing concerns, I use the cheapo coloured plastic case, and somehow it does "cool" my macbook quite a bit. The only things I observe is that it:

1. elevates the bottom up a bit higher

2. the grill at the bottom serves as some kind of heat conduction and dissipation.

Again, as mentioned, it is only "charlatan" observation.

cheers ...

 

like this
http://www.amazon.com/Speck-Product...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235706202&sr=8-2
and this
http://www.amazon.com/Speck-Product...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235706229&sr=8-1

 

if you're gaming you generally dont want to keep the macbook on your lap. get a fan. i have this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834999850

picked it up from fry's for 10 bucks and it does a good job and cooling the mac.