For a long time, I loved laptops.
What wouldn’t a 90’s kid do? They’re like desktops that you can fold up and carry around with you, and when I was growing up, it still looked like futuristic sci-fi technology. I can remember my friends pulling an old one out of a pile of e-waste on the street as a kid and fiddling with it to try and power it on (no luck), and when my parents gave me one for school, I happily carried it through my college years.
As I began to flop into my career as a journalist, a good laptop became an essential tool, along with a reliable voice recorder (never trust your phone) and a durable bag comfortable enough to carry all day through airports, through conference rooms, and eventually to any motel or hotel I ended up with. Ultimate on business trips. I carried the Dell XPS 13 through most of my twenties, and without it I wouldn’t have been able to do the job I love in the most reasonable way, which is to go where the story is instead of waiting for it to come to you.
But then my thirties hit, and they hit back. In a short time I learned about hangovers, back pain, and the mysterious threat of repetitive stress injuries. After a few years I started to have increasing pain and stiffness in my hands after a day’s work that didn’t go away the next day, and soon after that I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel and RSI in both hands and wrists. Laptops, with their low profile and small rectangular keyboards, quickly became more of a hindrance than a help in my work.
I think a good laptop stand is one of the best accessories you can have for working on the go, along with a comfortable keyboard and mouse.”
Fortunately, I had good administrators who tried to accommodate my injuries, hampering my ability to type, move the mouse, or do anything with my hand for extended periods. Since I live here in the States, this means that I had access to health insurance, which I consulted with a large number of doctors and specialists on how to treat (or at least deal with) these complex injuries while still doing the only kind of work I good at it.
I received a lot of good, actionable advice on how to stretch, how to take care of myself, and perhaps most relevant to this article, and how to optimize my workspace for minimal pain and suffering. At the suggestion of my physical therapist, I invested in a freestanding desk with an expensive motor (one of the best standing desks), a variety of ergonomic keyboards, a vertical mouse, a trackball mouse, and the most expensive version of Nuance’s Dragon speech recognition software I could.
After using all of this equipment for 18 months or so, I’m happy to say I’m much healthier and happier than I was a year ago. I can work longer with less pain, and I can tell you with authority which of those investments were paid (permanent office!) and which were a waste of money (Dragon’s dictation software is overrated and horrible, as is customer service; you better use the access tool Free Audio for Windows 11).
But there was one piece of equipment that revolutionized the way I worked when I was away from my standing desk, and helped me fall in love with laptops again. Also, this wasn’t something that any medical professional I spoke to specifically recommended, which is why I’m glad I took a flyer and bought one on a whim before a big business trip last year.
I’m talking, of course, about a decent laptop stand. Which I bought from Nexstand and still Available on Amazon for $45 (Opens in a new tab). So you get a simple black plastic stand that can be folded and put into a carrying case, then unfolded on a desk and adjusted to various heights.
If you’ve ever seen these in a coffee shop or in a gift guide and thought they sounded weird or useless to you, you got it. I’ve been like you for a long time. They are often advertised as useful ways to bring your laptop up to your eye line (so you don’t bend or wreck your back) or keep it cool by allowing air to flow underneath, and in my experience, both of these benefits are true.
But there’s another benefit to these cheap accessories that I didn’t even think of until I hit, and that’s the ease with which they help you turn your laptop into a more comfortable and productive workstation. Once you lift your laptop off the desk, it will naturally be possible to connect an external keyboard and mouse, and this change alone has revolutionized the way I work at Tom’s Guide.
Now, when I drive to my parents’ house to celebrate Thanksgiving this month, I can put my favorite ergonomic laptop stand, trackball, and keyboard in my bag along with my laptop. When I arrive, I can set up the perfect custom workstation in my spare bedroom, and I can spend the days leading up to Thanksgiving comfortably writing my tips for the best Black Friday deals on laptops, desktops, and more without downtime. 15 minutes to massage my hand and flick my wrist.
For many of you, this will probably be like old news, because laptop stands aren’t a new or hard to find accessory. Personally, I’ve always felt these are slightly silly looking “productivity-enhancing” devices of dubious use that I’ve only seen in coffee shops, usually in front of programmers and real cowboy types.
But once I had severe hand pain from typing all day and playing video games all night, the scales fell out of my eyes. Now I think a good laptop stand is one of the best accessories you can have for working on the go, along with a comfortable keyboard and mouse.
Most importantly, I think even if you don’t (yet) experience pain and stiffness when using your laptop, you should invest in making it more comfortable now so you don’t develop an RSI down the road. Believe me: once the pain starts, it’s harder to get rid of than you might expect, and it can come back pretty quickly the moment you start reverting to old habits. You have to relearn how to use your hands and how to move your whole body, and it’s a lot easier to start this process before the pain forces your hand.
While I can personally recommend the Nexstand laptop stand that costs $45 after using it for a year, I think you’re likely to get similar benefits from any laptop stand that meets your needs. Be sure to check the fine print to see that any stand you buy fits your laptop, and can elevate it to the level you want it to. The one I bought can boost the laptop up to 12.6 inches from a desk, and that’s high enough for a 6′ 4″ frame to sit comfortably in front of it for hours at a time.
Of course, it is still important to get up regularly to stretch and move around a bit. This piece of plastic won’t protect you from infection if you use it as an excuse to go back to sitting in front of your computer for hours on end, I’m (slowly) learning. (Here are some of the best exercises if you sit at the computer all day.) But given how affordable it is, I’d recommend anyone working on a laptop to pick one up regularly and try a setup like mine for a week – you might be surprised how much better you feel.
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