Back in 2011, I bought a 27” Thunderbolt Display to use with my MacBook when I was at home, working at my desk. It was huge, heavy as hell and, with a full suite of ports baked into its butt, wicked useful. This year, after being shipped across the country four times and riding around North America in a motorhome for the past three years, it finally gave up the ghost. It sucked taking it to be recycled. But, in all honesty, I’ve been feeling it was out of place for the tiny amount of space in our RV that we’ve allocated to be my work space.
After a few days of working in front of my laptop at my desk, I found that, from an ergonomic standpoint, life sucked without having a massive display to stare into while I typed. I have a neck injury that is very easily tweaked. Looking down for too long? That tweaks it. I decided that I needed to invest in a laptop stand.
I chose Twelve South’s HiRise for MacBook, for a number of reasons. First, I’ve used their gear in the past. It’s rock solid. The Compass iPad stand that I bought from them back in 2012 still gets a lot of regular use around the house and when I travel. Their BackPack shelf for my Thunderbolt Display was great too… although it’s not really all that useful since I trashed the monitor. Second, the stand is adjustable. I don’t like buying accessories that will only serve me in one situation. There’s no guarantee that I’ll always be working at the same table or desk. I wanted to get my hands on a laptop stand that would work for me, for years to come.
I made a good choice. The HiRise, although marketed for MacBooks, would work with pretty much any laptop out there. Constructed almost entirely out of brushed metal, the HiRise is study as hell. The rubber strips on its base keep it in one place, even when we’re traveling down the road at 80 miles per hour. The platform for resting your laptop on is covered in sticky rubber as well: it provides a slight slant to the laptop’s orientation, but keeps it from sliding around or moving in a way that’ll give you the ‘no’ feeling. I like that the platform consists of two slim, metal arms as it allows for better airflow. With my aging machine often chugging away, fans going full-tilt as I work in Photoshop, I need all of the help I can to keep my laptop from melting into a pile of silicon-scented slag.
Now, the bad news: the HiRise for MacBook will set you back $70. That’s a lot of money to spend on something that performs a function that a short stack of books can ape. But books are easily knocked over and I’ve owned less expensive laptop stands in the past that weren’t nearly as well made as the HiRise is. They were relegated to the recycling center, long ago.
I have a feeling that this one will be around for a while.
Image via Twelve South