does the techshell have vents on the bottom to minimize overheating???
Great question. No, there are no vents on the bottom of the techshell case HOWEVER, I was also concerned with the same issue so I emailed techshell about it. Here's their reply:
"Heat has not been an issue in our testing or customer experiences... The vents aren't blocked, so the fan is still able to blow out OK. There is a program called smc fancontrol at
http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/software/smcfancontrol2/index.html if you're concerned about heat. It can even allow you to adjust the fan speed manually, so your MacBook will run cooler." - Mark Smith
I also read that the majority of the heat dissipates through the rear vents and though the keyboard anyways so the problem was eased a bit in my mind. With that being said, I downloaded SMC Fan Control to monitor the temp difference. At times the temp. WITHOUT the case were 129F-133F. WITH the case I saw the same temp with an exception of a spike in temp in as high as 135F at sporadic times. Keep in mind the fan RPMs were still set at Apple standards of 1500RPM. Also, temp will normally go up if you were to charge your macbook while working on it at the same time. Hope that helps.
I love my techshell, it doesn't have the weird grooves/lines/design on the top shell piece. With the clear smoked techshell on my BLACKbook, it looks like a shiny black version of the white macbook's shiny exterior finish. So if anyone has a blackbook, I HIGHLY recommend the claear smoked case.