The heat from some laptop computers has resulted in reports of toasted skin syndrome and even skin burns. Although standards exist to limit the maximum temperature of electronic devices to prevent skin burns, few studies have been done on the thermal discomfort associated with laptop heat production. Consequently, a survey and temperature measurement was conducted among 100 laptop computer users. Cumulative logistic regression for ordinal responses was used to model the reported user thermal discomfort scores and to explore the possible factors that may affect thermal comfort. A positive relationship between discomfort scores and laptop surface temperatures was found.
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