Had an extended road gig materialize, so I thought I'd give this thing a try. Living in hotels with a laptop can be a pain sometimes, having to find a tray to put the laptop on, poor speaker quality if you want to do media, etc.
This seemed to be an answer to all those problems, so I picked one up.
http://www.amazon.com/Logitec....&sr=8-6
I mainly wanted the louder speakers. My Sony Viao has stereo speakers, but they are wimpy and even cranked you can't hear it over a hotel air conditioner. I was a little concerned that it didn't have its own power source... it runs completely over a USB connection.... but I am sitting here testing it, and I think I am just barely satisfied. The sound quality is much better (Looks like the speakers themselves are bigger), and I would guess it is 25% louder than the laptop speakers.
There is also a fan built in that aims directly at the bottom of the laptop, so that will fix any heating problems. I have one of those wider wide-screen laptops, and it can accommodate (edges of the laptop only overlap the speakers by about 10%). The little feet that flip up to keep the laptop from sliding forward also have little rubber grippy stoppers on them... I thought that was a nice little attention to detail. Go Logitech.
Slightly pricey at $70, but it seems to do what it is supposed to do, if you need this sort of thing.
To be honest, I'd have preferred it had an external power source to REALLY crank up the volume. But as I said, I am satisfied and will use this.