With the rapid development of science and technology, CPU boasts of increasingly high performance, and it has lower and lower power consumption since this year. Besides, many fanless laptops mainly depend on Intel Core M or Core Y mobile platform. At present, lots of people are wondering if they should buy one. Today, we will discuss this type and whether it deserves to buy.
Nowadays, the laptop without a fan has already been popular in the market. Many manufacturers have successfully solved the heat dissipation problem on the laptop that user concerns. With good performance and heat dissipation, the fanless laptop perhaps will become a new trend in the laptop market.
Advantage
1. The biggest advantage is quiet.
As the usage time on the laptop increases, lots of dust will gather inside. In the meantime, lubricant exhaustion, deviation, and damage will happen after a fan axis works for a long time. Generally speaking, a laptop with a fan will eventually bring loud noise if it is in use for a long time without getting good maintenance. Under the silent condition, the user can more clearly hear the noise generated by a fan.
Also, noise problem caused by a fan will fail to be radically settled even if you clean the dust and give it good maintenance. So the radical problem that a fanless laptop solves is laptop’s noise problem.
2. It brings ultrathin design.
This type has saved some space after it cancels the heat dissipation module including a fan and cooling copper pipe. Therefore, we can see that this laptop boasts of more thin body and the most classic example is Apple’s new MacBook.
3. It brings better sealing effect.
The fanless design enables a laptop not to have extra heat dissipation hole. This laptop can achieve heat dissipation effect as long as it uses a heat sink and metal shell. As a result, a laptop without a fan has not only greatly improved its sealing effect but also internal cleanliness.
Disadvantage
Although it has better performance on thinness, noise, and sealing, this type also has some weakness.
1. At present, this type’s biggest weakness is processor performance. As though Core M platform has better performance than Pentium, Celeron and Atom processor bring, it still shows poor performance when compared with standard voltage processor. That’s why most users hesitate to purchase one.
2. The thin and light product brings great portability, but it also brings some problem to whole reliability since this type most uses metal shell which doesn’t have high hardness owing to thin body design. For instance, the thin and light product is more inclined to get broken than traditional product under fall, clash and squeezing condition.
Fanless laptops and ultrabooks
Model | Type | Screen | Processor | Weight | Price |
Acer Chromebook 15 | General | 15.6″ IPS FHD | Braswell Celeron | 2.19 kg / 4.85 lbs | $249 |
Acer Spin 7 | Convertible | 14.0″ IPS FHD touch | Kaby Lake Core Y | 1.60 kg / 3.53 lbs | $899 |
Acer Chromebook 14 | General | 14.0″ IPS FHD | Broadwell Celeron | 1.68 kg / 3.70 lbs | $289 |
Teclast F7 | General | 14.0″ IPS FHD | Apollo Lake Celeron | 1.23 kg / 2.71 lbs | $339 |
ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 | Convertible | 14.0″ IPS FHD touch | Kaby Lake Core U | 1.50 kg / 3.30 lbs | $349 |
ASUS E406SA | General | 14.0″ TN FHD | Broadwell Celeron | 1.30 kg / 2.87 lbs | $299 |
Acer Switch 7 | General | 13.3″ IPS FHD | Kaby Lake Core Y | 1.12 kg / 2.48 lbs | $1199 |
ASUS Zenbook Flip UX360CA | Convertible | 13.3″ IPS FHD touch or QHD+ | Skylake Core M | 1.30 kg / 2.86 lbs | $699 |
Dell XPS 13 9365 2-in-1 | Convertible | 13.3″ IPS touch FHD or QHD+ | Kaby Lake Core Y (i5-7Y54,i5-7Y57) | 1.24 kg / 2.70 lbs | $1099 |
Huawei Matebook X | General | 13.3″ IPS FHD+ touch (2160 x 1440) | KabyLake Core U | 1.05 kg / 2.31 lbs | $799 |
Asus NovaGo TP370QL | General | 13.3″ IPS FHD touch | Snapdragon 835 | 1.39 kg / 3.05 lbs | unknown |
ASUS Transformer Book T300CHI | Detachable | 12.5″ IPS FHD touch | Broadwell Core M | 1.45 kg / 3.20 lbs | $466 |
HP EliteBook Folio G1 | General | 12.5″ IPS FHD or QHD | Skylake Core M | 0.97 kg / 2.14 lbs | $929 |
HP Spectre x2 12-a000 | Detachable | 12.5″ IPS FHD touch | Kaby Lake Core Y | 1.22 kg / 2.67 lbs (w/ dock) | $579 |
Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 12.5 | General | 12.5″ IPS FHD | Kaby Lake Core M | 1.07 kg / 2.36 lbs | $559 |
DELL Latitude 7285 | Detachable | 12.3″ IPS touch (2880 x 1920) | Kaby Lake Core Y (i5-7Y54,i5-7Y57) | 1.66 kg / 3.70 lbs (w/ dock) | $1099 |
Lenovo Miix 630 | Detachable | 12.3″ IPS FHD touch | Snapdragon 835 | 0.58 kg / 1.27 lbs | unknown |
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet (2nd) | Detachable | 12″ IPS FHD+ touch (2160 x 1440) | Kaby Lake Core Y (i7-7Y75) | 0.77 kg / 1.69 lbs | $1599 |
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 | Tablet | 12.3″ IPS touch (2736 x 1824) | Kaby Lake Core Y | 0.78 kg / 1.73 lbs | $699 |
Microsoft Surface Pro 5 | Tablet | 12.3″ IPS touch (2736 x 1824) | Kaby Lake Core U | 0.77 kg / 1.70 lbs | $899 |
Acer Switch 3 | Detachable | 12.2″ IPS FHD touch | Apollo Lake Pentium (N4200) | 0.90 kg / 1.98 lbs | $429 |
Acer Switch Alpha 12 | Detachable | 12″ IPS FHD+ touch (2160 x 1440) | Skylake Core U (i5-6200U) | 1.25kg / 2.76 lbs | $549 |
Apple MacBook 12 | General | 12″ IPS (2304 x 1440) | Skylake Core M | 0.92 kg / 2.03 lbs | $1299 |
Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 700 | Detachable | 12″ IPS FHD+ touch (2160 x 1440) | Skylake Core M (m5-6Y54) | 0.78 kg / 1.70 lbs | $849 |
Huawei Matebook E | Detachable | 12″ IPS FHD+ touch (2160 x 1440) | Kaby Lake Core Y | 1.10 kg / 2.43 lbs (w/ dock) | $599 |
Mini fanless laptops
Model | Type | Screen | Processor | Weight | Price |
Acer Spin 1 | General | 11.6″ IPS FHD | Apollo Lake Pentium | 1.25 kg / 2.76 lbs | $299 |
Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 | Convertible | 11.6″ HD touch | Braswell Pentium (N3710) | 1.39 kg / 3.07 lbs | $299 |
Asus Transformer Book T101HA | Detachable | 10.1″ IPS HD | Atom CherryTrail | 1.09 kg / 2.40 lbs (w/ dock) | $299 |
Asus Transformer Book T102HA | Detachable | 10.1″ IPS HD | Atom CherryTrail | 0.77 kg / 1.70 lbs (w/ dock) | $399 |
Lenovo Miix 320 | Tablet | 10.1″ IPS FHD touch | Atom BayTrail | 0.99 kg / 2.20 lbs (w/ dock) | $349 |
Since the fanless laptop has been on sale in the market, the problem that user complains most is undoubtedly performance that Core M platform brings. However, most of them even haven’t used it.
With CPU performance reaching a high standard, the Intel Core M processor can cope with basic daily tasks. Besides, the user experience that a laptop brings doesn’t depend on processor performance. Therefore, many users start to change SSD for the old laptop to improve user experience, and this method does work. As far as the user is concerned, it is high time that he correctly judged what product suits himself most by reviewing the relationship between performance and user experience.
You should add the Surface book 2 to this list.
That’s why the Acer switch 5 with an i7 and passive liquid loop is the best solution. The only drawback being the battery life since it works with a full-fledge CPU.
It should be in the laptop category, or it could be since it’s really a surface-like tablet. it’s sad that even Acer don’t build a liquid loop laptop instead of a surface like design.
HP 17″ laptop 17-by0010nr.
It has an N5000 processor and no fan.
The Asus laptop with N5000 does have a fan.
See processors under 7W, they are likely built into fanless laptops, but not guaranteed:
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/search/featurefilter.html?productType=873&3_MaxTDP-Max=7.5&0_StatusCodeText1=3,4
They’re supposed to be a successor to the N5000 processor in Q4/2019, then look for HP laptops built with that processor.
Check youtube videos about SSD upgrade of the certain model name, they open it up, and then you can see if a fan is there or just a big aluminum plate.
Acer Swift 1 is also fanless!
Asus E406MA and HP Pavilion x360 14-dh0001nc also don’t have fan according to HP forum: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/HP-Pavilion-x360-14-dh0001nc-does-have-a-fan-or-passive/m-p/7141823#M516988
Thank you, we will add it to this list.
Lenovo G50-30 is fanless too
Is the HP 15’s on list of fanless laptops?