Our experts pick the best laptops to write. as an amazon associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

What Are The Benefits of Fanless Laptops? [Top 7 Advantages]

What are the Benefits of Fanless Laptops?
What are the Benefits of Fanless Laptops?

Electrical impulses power the laptop’s electronic components. In order for these components to work properly, hot air must be evacuated and replaced with cooler air.

Laptops frequently feature fans to remove the heat created by the central processor unit, the power supply, the laptop casing, and even the graphics card.

Laptops generally have a fan for each of these components. Despite the popularity of employing fans, there are certain benefits to owning a laptop without any fans.

Fanless laptops are particularly quiet, clean, dependable, and adaptable as to their position.


The benefits of fanless laptops are listed below

Operations that go on without anyone hearing them

Laptop fans are responsible for most of the device’s overall loudness. When you remove fans, you reduce noise. Creating a PC that operates quietly is a key consideration for various laptops such as a home theater PC, or HTPC.

As a result of its ability to operate as quietly as a cable TV box or DVD player, fanless laptops are often utilized as HTPCs to replace several audio/visual components already in place.

There isn’t anything from the outside

Depending on where the fan is located and the case’s air circulation characteristics, some laptop fans blow inward while others blow outward.

When a laptop fan pushes cold air inside, it also brings dust and filth with it. The laptop’s electrical components might malfunction if dust and other dirt accumulate within it.

The influx of particles that might damage the PC is eliminated while utilizing a fanless laptop.

There aren’t any moving parts.

Moving components of a laptop are subject to mechanical failure caused by debris, shock, and vibration.

Most, if not all, of a laptop’s moving components, are fans. When a fan suffers a mechanical failure, it not only demands a new fan but also puts the stability and health of the laptop in danger.

As the temperature increases, the laptop could shut itself off abruptly. Some electrical components may overheat and become irreversibly damaged.

By using a fanless laptop, you’re avoiding the possible downtime and harm to electrical components that come with a fan mechanically failing.

Location Versatility

Laptops without fans may be used in places where fans aren’t appropriate for other types of laptops.

For example, there could be a requirement to position a laptop in an outdoor location exposed to rain or snow.

A laptop with fans would not be able to operate outside, while a laptop without fans could. Medical computers used in operating rooms are generally fanless laptops because fans jeopardize the cleanliness of the operating room.

Sized for Convenience

While some fanless systems — those employing bigger water-cooling methods, for example — are the same size as ordinary laptops, many are engineered to be as small as possible.

With no need to allow air around the components for cooling reasons, they may be put more tightly together, as long as overheating is avoided.

These laptops have the benefit of being able to fit in tiny locations and take up very little room.

Fanless systems are commonly placed below tables or mounted on walls to take advantage of their modest size.

Efficient use of energy

Fanless systems are often constructed to be as energy-efficient as feasible.

It is critical that these components squander as little electricity as possible and create as little heat as possible since there are no fans to keep them cool.

A fanless machine consequently requires less power than a complete laptop, saving energy expenses and decreasing environmental effects.

In a corporate office loaded with dozens or even hundreds of laptops, this may result in huge savings on energy expenditures.

Other benefits are also available for fanless laptops.

Fanless computers have fewer moving components and internal connections, which means fewer things may go wrong within the computer.

As they are frequently designed in a small, sealed form, they are sturdy too, making them ideal for situations where they may be thrown about or exposed to the weather.

Fanless means fewer holes for dust and moisture to get into the inner workings of the PC, and this means fanless systems are more durable and need less maintenance.

What are the Benefits of Fanless Laptops?

Why fanless laptops are different from the past

Most users, may not be aware of fanless laptops and fanless laptops like conventional laptops, so let’s first take a look at why today’s laptops can accomplish fanless designs. Fanless systems are built on hardware that uses less energy.

In reality, there are two major distinctions between a fan and a fan without a laptop: One is the disparity in heat dissipation strategies. Heat dissipation may be active or passive, depending on the application.

Second, there is a distinction in terms of transportability. The power consumption of a fan laptop is rather high, and the fan itself is also bigger, so the body is often thicker than the fanless product, thus there is a more visible difference in mobility.

We all know that while a laptop is in use, the CPU and graphics card will create more heat, and the more powerful the hardware, the bigger the power consumption, and the greater the heat generated.

As a result, in order to accomplish a fan-less design, hardware support is required first. And Intel’s Core M platform serves this job effectively.

The thermal design power consumption of 4.5W and the 14nm technology make it a compact size with low power consumption, which can assure the steady operation of the laptop in the passive cooling mode.

In addition, while the performance of Core M is not as excellent as Core low-voltage processors and standard voltage CPUs, it is substantially better than BayTrail-M’s Pentium, Celeron, and Atom platforms.

It is still possible to obtain a decent experience using solid-state drives. Daily application requirements aren’t an issue.

The passive cooling method of the Fanless method

For regular people, the only method to comprehend the internal architecture of a product is via the disassembly of the media platform.

As for the subject of “how does a fanless laptop disperse heat”, I suppose many friends would want to know about it, therefore I will demonstrate to you how fanless passive cooling is done via the disassembly of a device.

As can be observed from the disassembly photo above, the two large heat-generating users, the CPU and the graphics card, the usual copper pipe, and the fan cooling design are not employed, but a layer of the heat sink is covered.

We can see that the heat sink behind the black adhesive paper is a standard brass heat sink.

Among common metals, silver, copper, aluminum, and brass have the greatest thermal conductivity and brass transmits heat in laptop computers.

It is the most commonly used and mature, and the cost is cheaper. Although its heat conductivity is not as excellent as the previous three, it is suitable for the Core M platform.

In addition to the silicone grease and heat sink linked to the heating element, fan-less laptops, and fan-less laptops primarily employ aluminum-magnesium alloy metal casings.

The thermal conductivity of aluminum is stronger than that of brass, but the aluminum material itself is relatively soft, so aluminum-magnesium while the alloy solves the problem of robustness, also acts as a part of the fanless cooling system.

So the fanless passive cooling method is completely free of concerns with the support of low-power hardware.

Buy it or not fanless laptop?

A fanless laptop, its benefits, and its drawbacks are quite evident, and knowing these advantages and disadvantages can also help customers make proper judgments when selecting a fanless laptop.

So, let’s examine the benefits and drawbacks of laptops without fans. The benefits of a fanless laptop

A lot of dust will collect inside the notebook computer as the usage time grows. A long-running fan bearing may wear out its lubrication and wear out the bearing itself due to the friction and heat it generates.

Therefore, the laptop that normally takes a long time and does not pay attention to periodic maintenance is gonna make a quite loud noise. You’ll hear the laptop fan, especially if you’re in a peaceful setting.

In addition, even if you have the hands-on skill to clean dust and maintain it, the real impact will become more and more discounted with time.

As a result, laptop noise reduction is the most important issue that Fanless addresses.

Second, notebooks with fanless cooling systems have a slimmer fan.

In the past, ultrabooks and 2-in-1 laptops typically chose to omit various major connectors in the ultra-thin design, such as VGA and RJ-45 Ethernet ports.

A 2mm reduction in notebook thickness is possible by removing these interfaces, however, adding internal fans and copper cooling pipes would still increase the laptop’s thickness.

Due to the removal of the fan and the copper cooling tubing, this portion of the interior is now free. Therefore, we observe that most fanless laptops and fanless laptops have a thinner form. The most usual one is Apple’s new MacBook.

The lack of a fan provides a third advantage that may not be immediately apparent but is crucial to the laptop's health: increased airtightness.

Fans, cooling copper pipes, air ducts, shell materials, and cooling windows are just a few of the numerous components that go into traditional laptop cooling systems.

The design of fans and cooling windows makes it particularly easy to gather dust within the fuselage, which in turn impairs the cooling effectiveness of the machine.

In addition, noise pollution is a possibility.

The fanless design does not need to open extra heat dissipation windows, simply the heat sink and the metal casing can produce the heat dissipation effect, so its sealing is substantially enhanced, and the cleanliness of the interior of the fuselage is surely much improved.

Disadvantages of fanless laptop

There are benefits and losers. Since fanless laptops are more significant in the three elements of lightweight, noise reduction, and airtightness, they will necessarily have limitations in certain aspects.

First and foremost, the performance of a laptop without a fan is significantly diminished.

Although the Core M platform offers higher performance than Pentium, Celeron, and Atom CPUs, it has clear performance deficiencies when compared with low-voltage processors and standard-voltage processors.

Almost all of the people who visit the official website of a fanless laptop follow this trend.

Second, although lightweight items are convenient to carry, the fuselage’s thin design and the use of metals with low hardness for the majority of the outer shell create significant dependability risks.

Slim items, for example, are more readily destroyed than typical ones in cases of falling, squeezing, collision, etc. Because of this, military-grade items are seen as “dumb and thick” by civilians.

The third issue is that the price of a mainstream brand fanless laptop is often greater, and the popularity, impact, and real quality of other brand items are not exceptional.

Despite the fact that the Core M platform was launched in October of last year, it is still a new platform for the laptop market as a whole. Core M laptops with no fans are also on the horizon.

Users’ awareness of it With such a low level of public awareness and a lack of compelling performance to back up the high price, it’s hard to justify the high asking price at this time.

As can be seen, laptops without fans nevertheless have unique benefits and downsides. What options do consumers have right now? Which kind of customers would benefit most from its product features?

Fanless products: what are they?

After learning some of the fundamental criteria of fanless laptops, let’s have a look at what has to be paid attention to when buying a fanless laptop at this point.

First of all, because you are purchasing a category of items, you must learn what particular products are offered and the qualities of these products. You may use them as business laptops as well.

Two factors mostly account for the present brand mix of laptops without fans: One is the items launched by typical OEM manufacturers.

Such as Lenovo YOGA 3 11, Apple MacBook, ASUS U305, Samsung ATIV Book 9, etc.

The second is a selection of goods sourced from southern Chinese producers. Manufacturers such as Taipower, Onda, Cube, Blue Devils, and others that had previously focused on the tablet market are now moving into fan-free laptops, thanks in part to strong official backing from Intel.

This is the same as the previous ultrabooks and 2-in-1s. 1 Laptop is promoted in a totally different way than computers in general at the start of their lives.

Here are three representative fan-less laptops

Let’s first check into Lenovo YOGA 3 11. Users are no strangers to the YOGA name. YOGA 3 11 is an 11.6-inch full HD touch screen flip notebook computer, based on the Core M architecture with a fanless design.

The overall look is still available in a number of hues, of which orange is the most traditional.

The weight of YOGA 3 11 is just 1.1kg, the thickness is 14.66mm, and the 11-inch screen makes its body extremely small, thus it has good portability.

The Samsung ATIV Book 9 is also an intriguing laptop since it does not have a fan. Although it does not employ a flip screen or pluggable design, it has developed a very excellent feeling of quality under the conventional form, notably, the design of the thin bezel is eye-catching.

In addition, the ATIV Book 9 screen section adopts Samsung’s proprietary PLS wide-angle screen, and the display impact is quite excellent at 1080P resolution. In terms of general craftsmanship, this machine is equally amazing.

The crystal diamonds on the side loaves and the all-metal body serve to emphasize the product’s exceptional quality.

In addition, the fanless laptop that has gotten the most attention from customers so far is Apple’s MacBook. The MacBook, on the other hand, is now the most divisive product.

One of the primary complaints of consumers is that the butterfly keyboard has an unpleasant feel to it, as well as a single USB-C port and high pricing for USB-C extension cables.

However, many customers are compelled to acquire it because of the high quality of the craftsmanship, the look of local gold color matching, and the flawless design.

The fanless MacBook is without a doubt Apple’s most divisive device to date, even among its own goods.

Which users are suitable for fanless laptops

For users, who are fanless laptops good for? From the preceding introduction, it is not difficult to discover that the features of the fanless laptop are extremely apparent, therefore its placement population is also pretty clear.

In the ultimate analysis, it is typically suited for the following kinds of people: In reality, the solution is fairly easy, that is, consumers who use the laptop for a short period and have a single program.

For example, the author’s mother uses just three programs on her laptop: video chatting with the author, checking some daily news, and watching TV series or movies.

A majority of these customers only use their laptops for a few hours a day, and a few can go days without turning them on.

For such customers, a fanless laptop, particularly a low-cost fanless laptop released by manufacturers in southern China, is extremely suitable.

The performance of the Core M CPU is often cited as a concern by friends, but I can attest from my current Atom core minicomputer and the regular fan-less laptop reports that this is an unfounded fear.

In addition, the elements that determine the office application experience do not totally originate from the CPU, and the hard drive is equally significant.

Solid-state hard drives are now used by the vast majority of Core M systems, therefore office usage is not an issue.

Naturally, the present and fanless laptop is not ideal for your requirements if you still want to play games outside of the workplace.

The thinness and lightness of a fanless laptop are ideal for these types of users, and models like the MacBook are also quite face-off when they are removed from their cases.

If they are utilized at a coffee shop, they are clearly an X weapon. In addition, a laptop’s performance is not too dependent on its ability to provide extended battery life and support movie viewing, and a low-power fan-less laptop may surely satisfy both requirements.

Mentioned that student users are constantly connected with the gamebook. Many students enjoy playing games, but there is also a sizable percentage of users who have little interest in them.

It is only that individuals in a dormitory get together to influence one another, and blind obedience happens while purchasing a laptop.

You didn’t want to purchase a gaming laptop in the first place, but your three roommates all did, so you may as well join them.

Indeed, the most convenient laptop for many students and friends is a little one that takes up little room and may be used for sex.

It’s a fun gamebook to send home with pupils who don’t attend schools in the same city as their own. Suffering beyond words. The fanless laptop’s tiny size, lightweight design, and practical performance are adequate to suit the demands of many students and friends.

The design of Intel’s fanless laptops has undergone a significant change as a result of this shift. As a result, OEMs with well-established brands lead the charge, with the help of manufacturers in South China that can rapidly adapt and ship swiftly.

It is a two-pronged strategy to jointly develop a fanless laptop structure. Traditional OEM manufacturers’ techniques are heavily relied upon by ultrabooks and 2-in-1 laptops.

Exactly because of this, high-quality devices with strong brand names like the MacBook, YOGA 3 11, ATIV Book 9, and U305 may be found alongside inexpensive pricing from southern Chinese manufacturers in the early stages of fanless laptop designs.

Products are priced. As a result, laptops with no fans are becoming more popular as an initial design choice that can accommodate a wide range of users.

Since the introduction of fanless laptops, the Core M platform’s performance has been the subject of the most complaints from customers.

However, most of them have not truly utilized fanless laptops. This critique is also widespread, as a result.


Conclusion on What Are The Benefits of Fanless Laptops

Less noise, if they don’t have an HDD but just an SSD, you won’t hear any noise.

More efficient. The fan itself requires microAmperes, however, if a CPU doesn’t need a fan that suggests it doesn’t have much heat to disperse. Minimizing electricity loss as heat is the optimal approach.

Nothing needs to be cleaned inside. Once or twice a year, you should clean the filter on your ceiling fan. Or else they may become so dusty that the airflow is inadequate even at full speed, the CPU overheats and it’s not good.

Thinner. Maybe. Finned heatsinks, which are often the tallest component, have a more effective fan.

Longer lasting. Heat destroys materials and all moving components have a limited lifespan. However, it will certainly become outdated before breaking.

Longer lasting power. The CPUs of fanless laptops, in contrast to the typical laptop CPU’s 60W power consumption, are highly tuned for energy efficiency.

Less weight. However, thanks to an improved CPU and smaller battery, the same amount of time may be achieved with a lighter fan and dissipator. The battery is the heaviest component.

They may be smaller.


Also read: Why is my laptop battery draining so fast?

Related Articles:

Share on:
Avatar for William Larson

William Larson is a computer engineering graduate and a techy writer and a laptop enthusiast based in New York who is the man behind BestLaptopsVenture.com, where he reviews and writes professionally about laptops & cutting-edge technology with more than 12 years of experience in the industry. He tends to spend most of his time researching the best laptops. His love for studying laptops enables him to assist others to find the best laptops. He has written and managed content for tech websites like Laptops, Computers, T-Sprint, and TracFone Wireless, etc. On YouTube, he reviews laptops, How to guides, Tips, peripherals, and hold giveaways. You can follow him on Twitter.

Leave a Comment