Dell Concept Luna: Sustainable notebook with passive cooling behind display

Together with Intel, manufacturer Dell has presented its vision of the notebook of the future. The concept is called Dell Concept Luna and presents itself as a particularly sustainable laptop with a smaller mainboard and an innovative cooling concept.

Dell Concept Luna: Does the notebook of the future look like this?

A few weeks before the start of CES 2022 on 04 January, Dell Technologies presented an innovative notebook concept that was developed together with Intel. Dell Concept Luna looks like a classic ultrabook at first glance, but the technology and idea behind it is innovative.

For example, the mainboard turns out to be 75 percent smaller compared to classic ultrabooks. The number of components soldered onto it has also been reduced by 20 percent.

This reduction in size leads to a significant improvement in the ecological footprint. After all, mainboards are the components that require the most energy in notebook manufacturing.

Compared to the Dell Latitude 7300 AE, the motherboard comes in at less than 56 cm², which is a 50 percent reduction in CO2. The board’s material is also made of linen fiber and water-soluble polymer adhesive, making the parts easier to recycle when disposed of.

Passive cooling behind display

In addition, the motherboard moves behind the display on the Dell Concept Luna, and the idea behind it makes perfect sense. According to Dell, the display lid gets more contact with the cooler ambient air, which means the motherboard benefits from the larger outer surface and is installed further away from the battery at the same time. Thus, a significantly better passive cooling is achieved.

The Dell Concept Luna is also much easier to disassemble completely or replace parts. Only four screws on the entire notebook have to be removed to get inside.

The battery has also been completely reworked and does its work much more efficiently, which means lower consumption and therefore allows the installation of a smaller battery. The advanced battery should also hardly lose any of its capacity even after years of use, so it can at least theoretically be recycled and installed in a second notebook.

The display and palm rest are also designed to be separable from the rest of the device, making them easier to replace. As usual, Concept Luna will not find its way into mass production in this form, but Dell plans to test the ideas gained from it and use the concepts in future notebooks in its own portfolio.