Setup
I would recommend setting the Hawk1 with your laptop on top of it on a table or desk. This is due to the fan of the cooler being on the bottom of the cooler. Setting it other places such as a bed would decrease the airflow potential due cloth blocking the fans.
As you can see I placed my laptop on the kitchen counter to allow it to have proper spacing around the sides and bottom of the laptop and as well as the Hawk1.
To show a comparison as well, I placed my IEEE netbook on the Hawk1. As you can see, it better fits a netbook more so than a 15in notebook.
Testing
To test the Hawk1 I used my HP 4510s and ran Prime 95 to put full load onto the CPU. Doing this will increase the heat of the CPU to show differences between the stock cooling and cooling done by the Hawk1. This will effectively show the variations between the two.
As you can see the variation differences weren’t much but the Hawk1 did cool the laptop down a bit. The differences being 3 degrees idle and 4 degrees difference at full load.