What runs cooler in your lap? MBP 13, 15 or 15 last gen with only NVidia 9400 graphic

N

nph

macrumors 65816
With the risk of sounding stupid I really want my next laptop to be useable in my lap. Not ripping a DVD but for any other activity like web, watching a streaming movie, playing Age of Empires, Civ IV or coding.

Am looking at Macbook, MBP 13 or 15 current generation.
Another option is the 15 inch MBP last generation 2.53 with only Nvidia 9400 graphics and no discrete card.

My two main criteria are:
-Battery time, which I believe all of these offer decently
-Heat (almost most important since I don't want to have anything I need to drag around to put underneath it in order to be able to use it without overheating or burning my lap. Already done that for my first gen MBP and subsequent MBA).

Appreciate any info from owners of the above machines when it comes to Heat and battery time!!
 
I have a 15" i5 2.4 Ghz, and when it's on the intel graphics card (which I force using gfxCardStatus) and I'm surfing the web, the CPU is usually around 41 degrees C. It's the coolest laptop I've ever used, and I'm very happy with that.

My girlfriend has the previous gen 13" MBP, 2.26 c2d, and it runs a bit warmer than this one, but still better than my old plastic macbook.

screenshot20100612at106.png
 
FWIW the 13" Macbook Pro with the Nvidia 320m card runs very cool in your lap. Before I used to use the previous gen macbook pro with an ilap because the bottom would get uncomfortably warm or kind of hot (this was the case with the nvidia 330m as well on the 17" i7 2.66GHz model that I had but sold). The most impressive part is that the nvidia 320m is about the same speed as the 9600m gt and while running cool like the 9400m. :)
 
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