![]() But, you can easily find a basic mouse and keyboard combo for less than $20. ![]() Without them, you’re simply replacing one ergonomic issue with others. At the same time, it’s hard to recommend a laptop stand if you’re not prepared to buy an external mouse and keyboard, too. For a home office upgrade, that feels like a fair price. ![]() The model from Best Buy’s in-house Insignia brand costs only around $30. When paired with an external mouse and keyboard, it helps approximate the ergonomic experience of an all-in-one desktop, at a fraction of the price. When I asked the folks on CR’s Slack channel for input, nearly a dozen came forward to explain the virtue of owning a stand. “Because laptops are so tiny, I’d be hunched over for long stretches of time if I didn’t have the stand,” she adds.Īnd Chow is not alone. It does what it’s supposed to do, she says: Raise the display to eye level. When people started setting up home offices for the long term, the company asked what equipment we needed. “Pre-pandemic, I worked in an office, so I had a desktop,” says Chow, a communications specialist at Consumer Reports, who was employed by a different company at that time. “Working from home wasn’t planned, so I just sorta had my laptop on my desk. That depends on what you’re hoping to accomplish.įor someone like my CR colleague Lisa Chow, who doesn’t have space for a tricked-out home office complete with an external monitor on a Gordon Gecko-sized desk, a laptop stand makes a lot of sense. Some models are available in a range of colors and you should be able to find a stand that you’ll like seeing on your desk every day. You may want to consider aesthetics, too. "I’m not sure how much benefit you get from the fan," she says, "unless you own a high-powered gaming laptop." According to Antonette Asedillo, who oversees laptop testing at Consumer Reports, simply elevating your laptop will help keep it cool by allowing air to circulate beneath it. I did not find those to be particularly useful, but you may disagree. Some stands offer bonus features like a swing-out stand to hold your phone or even built-in fans to cool your laptop. In addition to height, some models also let you adjust the angle at which your laptop is tilted, which can help you see the screen more easily. So a laptop stand works best when paired with a standalone keyboard and mouse, like the setup you’d use when pairing your laptop with a computer monitor. Now, when you raise the laptop off your desk, the keyboard and trackpad get elevated, too. You’ll find dozens of other options available, many of them lookalikes, which means you don’t have to limit yourself to the models I tried, as long as you understand the pros and cons of each style. They were the Besign LSX5 Aluminum Laptop Stand ($20), Insignia Ergonomic Laptop Stand ($32), Kentevin Laptop Stand ($15), PWR+ Laptop Table Stand ($45), and Soundance Laptop Stand ($25). All cost less than $50, and together they offer a variety of ways to adjust the height and angle of the laptop. I bought five of the most popular laptop stands from Amazon and Best Buy, and evaluated them using my 13-inch MacBook Air. You simply place the stand on your desk, and your laptop on the stand, and off you go. For as little as $15, they say you can get a device that improves your posture, enhances your productivity, tidies up your workspace, and keeps your laptop from overheating. Laptop stands get a lot of online raves from people looking for a cheap way to raise their laptops off their desks-no stack of dusty books needed.
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