So you’ve got yourself a laptop. Sparkly, shiny, expensive. Bringer of both pleasure and headaches. All rolled in to one!

Most people love these ‘digital companions’ when they’re working, an loath, despise and moan about them when they’re not working. Well our ongoing ‘Laptop Tips’ series, we’d like to give our top tips help you get the most out of them, while keeping the headaches to a bare minimum, think of this as a stress saver!

Tip 1: Laptop Stands: Laptops can be great. But it’s worth remembering there are a few compromises made when they are designed. Speed & hard-drive size being obvious ones. But less obvious are the compromises made ergonomically – factors that can lead to fatigue, discomfort and injury while using laptops.
The keyboards are relatively flat and small, and therefore less ergonomic than desktop computer keyboards. The screens are generally smaller than is ideal for your eyes, and certainly the screen height being lower than eye level is far from ideal ergonomically. This is bad for your hands and arms, contributing to Repetitive Strain Injury. And is bad for your neck and back, leading to achy joints.
(It’s a much bigger problem than most people realise. Have a look at these posture diagrams, if you need more information)
Laptop stands go some way to addressing these compromises. They raise/angle the keyboard to position generally considered ergonomically better. And most importantly they raise the screen level to something close to the ideal, meaning less leaning from the neck and back for you.
This may not sound like a big deal, but once someone tries a decent laptop stand, most absolutely won’t be parted from it ! It really does make that much of a difference.
Additionally many laptop stands can give your more desk-space, and can make the laptop run cooler and quieter, by giving better airflow. Both of which can be extremely useful for certain people. Not that many modern laptops need it, but some stands can even give you extra USB ports for plugging peripherals like that printer and scanner sitting on your desk.

As with many computer related products, there are good and bad examples, these are our favorites:

The Logitech Alto Express:

Cost: £13-£17, inc. V.A.T.
If you have a laptop with a 15inch screen or less (yes that bit is important!), for simply making your laptop more comfortable to use, this product really can’t be beat! It reduces fatigue on the hands, fore-arm, neck and back, while giving you more desk-space (the curved shaped leaves a decent sized space underneath, perfect for things like laptop power supplies etc.). It has rubber feet which stop it sliding on the desk. And the increased airflow from it’s curved design also makes the laptop run cooler and quieter! Wonderful!

The Trust “Xstream” laptop stand:
Cost: £12-£16, inc. V.A.T.
Can be adjusted to 5 different heights, is designed to increase airflow around your laptop, has protective rubbers pads to stop desk slippage/scratching, lightweight and foldable (would probably fit in a large laptop bag). Is suitable for laptops with screen sizes up 17.4″, has 2 fold-out flaps at bottom that mean laptop is secure on stand. And if your laptop needs more USB ports, there’s also a USB version with a built-in 4-port USB Hub for around £17-£23, inc. V.A.T. .

Next time, recommended cleaning products, to get that icky finger grease off your laptop screen and keyboard…