Save Your Back, Use a Laptop Stand

Working mostly from home for the past 15 years, I had to figure out long ago how I could sit at a desk in the unnatural position of being planted in front of a screen for hours on end without standing up at the end of each day a mangled mess of sore muscles and creaky bones.

For most of the time in the early days, I was using an external monitor. It was perfectly sized for me to look into, rather than down at an angle as with laptops’ built-in screens. But when the monitor breathed its last moments and died, my willingness to shell out a bunch of extra money for a replacement monitor died with it.

So I just stuck with my MacBook’s screen. Soon enough, my neck and back would be screaming for me to quit slouching, but I couldn’t help it. I’d sink into stooping over toward the screen that hovered well below my chin.

Then I tried a few makeshift solutions, a few other laptop stands, and ultimately I landed on the Rain Design iLevel2. No matter which stand you end up using, give one a shot.

If you don’t believe me, stack a few hardcover books or a spare shipping box under your laptop for a few days. You’ll notice how much better you feel when you can sit up straight and look directly into your laptop’s screen.

benefits of a good laptop stand

Right off the bat, let’s address the elephant in the room. It’s $59. Do you really need to pay that much for a decent laptop stand? You’re asking the right guy.

I spent most 2020 working at a kitchen table (and later a folding picnic table) calling upon my latent Tetris skills and stacking all sorts of things into makeshift laptop stands to save my aching back and keep from forcing everybody on Zoom to look up at a weird angle into my nostrils.

When I finally decided stacks of old shipping boxes were just frankly terrible, I didn’t go right for the iLevel2. I bought another of Rain Designs, the $40 mStand. This one isn’t height adjustable, and I found it too low to use with my 2020 MacBook Air. And even with a separate webcam perched atop the screen edge, I found the angle off on video calls.

I returned it for the iLevel2. Even bopping around the apartment from one desk to another, with their different heights, it was a snap to set the stand for the right height. No more posture-destroying slouching, and no more neck and back pain at the end of the day, either.

The build quality is fantastic. Carved out of aluminum by what I assume to be tech gods, it’s solidly built, and the aluminum is thick enough that it doesn’t bend under the weight of my 3 1/2-pound MacBook Pro, even with a separate webcam hanging onto the screen edge for video calls.

The Space Gray model I own (you can also get it in classic silver) even matched my Space Gray MacBook. Or it did until I bought a MacBook Pro M4 last November and Space Gray was no longer offered on the swanky, new machine, a travesty that I will complain about until the day I die and then probably for a few weeks after, too.

Luckily for me, the Space Black MacBook Pro goes well with the Space Gray iLevel2. When is Rain Design going to release a Space Black version of its stands, though? It’s not critical, but it does seem like the next logical step. Rain Design, your move.