I recently complained to a friend that I would like to spend more time writing in cafés, but that I quickly get neck pain from staring down at my laptop.
My friend made me aware that laptop stands are a thing, and that I can just prop my laptop up so that the screen is at eye level.
This is amazing and - together with a separate keyboard and mouse - fixed many of my ergonomics issues. Though if my chair isn’t high enough, the screen might end up slightly above eye level, which isn’t totally comfortable either. But that’s usually easier to deal with.
I’m flabbergasted that I’d never seen anyone else use one of these (not even at their homes, where they wouldn’t need to carry external peripherals around), nor had I heard of them before my friend told me about their existence.
Mine is a Leitz Ergo one. When you don’t use it, you can fold it away and it goes into a nice flat pouch.
The only drawbacks are that one, you need a bit more space. And two, your laptop will (literally) stand out a bit more. This does sometimes make me feel a bit more self-conscious.
On the other hand, the way it stands up kind of makes it look like one of those Transformers robots, which is cool.
Well, kind of.
There’s also bookstands. They are slightly less convenient in that you need to frequently remove the book from the stand to turn the pages, but I’ve appreciated mine nonetheless.
Discuss