Forget your laptop stand and hideously mismatched secondary display, because Samsung's Lapfit series offers external LCD monitors that will match your laptop beautifully. The Lapfit External Display, which coordinates with the design of Samsung's latest laptops and comes in 19- and 22-inch versions, connects to your notebook, considerably enlarging your workable display area.
(Credit:
Samsung Korea)
The pair of low-profile, wide-screen monitors, the LD190G (19-inch) and LD220G (22-inch), sit at the height of your typical laptop and have adjustable tilt angles from 10-30 degrees. Both monitors offer 1,360x768 pixel resolution (16:9 aspect ratio), 4ms response time, and a 20,000:1 dynamic-contrast ratio.
There's nothing groundbreaking about these monitors, but their USB 2.0 graphic connectivity and low power usage is a nice boon. We'd recommend a notebook with a beefy graphics card to go along with this if you want to take full advantage of the features.
The 22-inch LD220G will purportedly see a March release in Korea, with a retail price of $215, while the 19-inch LD190G will sell for $165. No announcements were made about a U.S. release.
So, is anyone hoping to chuck their laptop stand in exchange for one of these?
(Credit:
Ponoko)
I just spent the past week vacationing in a rural area of Hawaii, where I was surrounded by palm trees and dense tropical foliage. Now I'm back in my office, surrounded by plastic computer cases and peripherals, all atop a white laminate desk. It's bad enough that my vacation's over, but the sudden withdrawal of natural materials is really bringing me down.
Which is why the wooden Stiletto laptop stand spoke to me when I saw it on shopping blog Mighty Goods Wednesday morning. The unique stand is quite a bit more stylish than the usual plastic riser, and it can be self-assembled without any hardware or glue. Best of all, it has two ledges: one to lift your laptop to a more comfortable height, the other to hold papers, pens, and other materials you'd want to keep close at hand.
If you're likewise enchanted, the stand will set you back $49 plus shipping (contact designer for shipping rates). But hey--it's cheaper than most wooden computer accessories.
Once you choose a laptop as your primary computer, you're likely to invest a fair amount of time figuring out your ideal setup for working at your desk. So after I published a roundup of our favorite laptop stands, I wasn't surprised that a number of readers wrote in with their own preferred methods for lifting their laptops.
(Credit:
Rain Design)
First, Ryan wrote in to endorse the iLap from Rain Design (shown at left). "It has worked great with all my laptops for years," he said. He went on to explain that he liked the product's versatility: a removable padded front cushion lets you use the stand on your lap as well as on a desk.
Reader W.T. offered a low-tech (and cheap) solution: cutting boards, especially those with nonskid silicone accents. He attributes the cutting board with keeping his laptop vents clear and away from debris, and likes that they work on tabletops, pillows, or his lap. Because heat is an issue, W.T. urges you to use only cutting boards that are rated dishwasher-safe by the NSF. "I haven't figured out the IT uses for rolling pins as of yet," he adds.
(Credit:
Oof Design)
And finally, reader Todd sent me a link to a post on the Sci Fi Tech blog that describes the Fingers laptop stand, a clear acrylic riser with teeth--or, um, fingers--along the back to hold your cables and cords in place when you go roaming with your laptop. The product is available from Oof Design for about $30 plus shipping.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and if you know of an uplifting laptop accessory, let me know in the comments.
The Alto notebook stand now has a wireless keyboard.
(Credit: Logitech)When we reviewed the Logitech Alto earlier this year, we loved its design, which combined a notebook riser, keyboard, and three high-speed USB ports into a single workstation that could fold up when not in use. But we didn't like how the all-in-one design kept the keyboard at a fixed distance from the display--not ideal from an ergonomic standpoint. Clearly, the company took our feedback seriously, because today they've announced the Alto Cordless Notebook Stand. As the name implies, this new version of the product features a detachable keyboard that lets you vary the distance from the keyboard to your laptop's display. Aside from this ergonomic innovation, the $99 Alto Cordless Notebook Stand is nearly identical to its predecessor.
We do still wish that Logitech could come up with a way for the Alto to prop up a laptop without blocking the ports along its front edge (admittedly an issue for only a portion of laptop users). But we welcome the addition of wireless, which should make using this unique product just a little more comfortable. Look for it to start shipping in September.
(Credit:
ikeahacker)
There are plenty of laptop stands available, and you can probably find one that meets your budget and computing-from-the-couch needs. But where's the fun in simply clicking a link and waiting for UPS to deliver this final product to your door? Why not build your very own laptop stand? A man who calls himself the IKEA Hacker shows off various laptop stands made from cheap, Swedish furniture. A $19 wooden stool and a $6 saw, for example, will net you a nice-looking stand. Other designs include a stand made from a paper towel holder and another from a kitchen shelf.
(Via The Consumerist)
Logitech Alto Express
The gang at accessories powerhouse Logitech have been hard at work devising a slate of new products for your laptop. The most interesting of these--all being officially announced today--are a couple of laptop cases and laptop stands.
If the ubiquity of a laptop stand has eluded you, you clearly have not spent enough time trying to work on a laptop in a standard office environment, staring at a screen below eye level and trying to work a flat keyboard all day long.
Logitech AltoConnect
Logitech's new Alto Express ($29.99) is a simple curved piece of plastic, but it raises your laptop to a more ergonomically correct angle, and includes a gentle scoped-out back for better airflow--very important for proper cooling.
For a more portable take on a laptop stand, the AltoConnect ($79.99) has two plastic legs that fit together in an "X" pattern, but can be taken apart for easy transit. It also includes a four-port USB hub, but even folded up, the AltoConnect seemed a little big for our laptop case. The Alto Express will be available in July and the AltoConnect in September.
Logitech Kinetik Backpack
When not perched in an ergonomically correct laptop stand, your portable computer may want to hang out in one of Logitech's two new laptop cases--the Kinetik 15.4 Backpack and the Kinetik 15.4 Briefcase are both generously sized and generously padded cases for 15-inch or smaller laptops (or a 17-inch MacBook).
Both are on the bulky side, with a stiff "exo-shell" casing, as Logitech calls it, and a contoured back panel. The backpack and briefcase are both $99.99 and should be available in September.
If there's one thing every laptop junkie can always use, it's better posture. Yet conventional computer stands that adjust angles can go only so far.
(Credit:
Thanko RareMono Shop)
For one thing, what do you do when you want to surf while lying on your back? So far as we know, no one has invented a suspension system that would lower your laptop from the ceiling a la Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 3.
But now there's finally some help for us, the terminally lazy: A gravity-defying laptop stand that goes by the classically butchered Japanese-English hybrid name of "Easy Desk Aluminum." We couldn't care less what it's called--we just want one so we can take full advantage of our multimedia mat.
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