After traveling long-term and working remotely, I have a lot of opinions about what makes a good laptop stand. The last thing that you want to do for eight hours is be hunched over a desk. This is where a laptop stand can really shine to help your productivity and prevent injuries.
I covered some of the benefits of laptop stands in another article. That article talks a lot about the reasons for why getting a laptop stand is a good idea for your home office.
In this article, Ill be covering laptop stands that are best for travel and commuting.
Things to look for in a portable laptop stand
During your research, I want to help and give you a head start on some key points that make a portable laptop stand great.
Weight
You want the laptop stand to be as light as possible if you’re traveling with it. Depending on the type of travel that you’re doing, weight can be an important factor in the items that you select to travel with.
Ive taken a few trips on which I only brought a single backpack with me. In these instances, every item that I selected to bring was carefully thought out.
I like a foldable laptop stand, like The Roost and the Nexstand, because they both do not have a lot of material; because of that, both are laptop stands that I would consider to be lightweight. The Roost is about 165 grams and the Nexstand is about 250 grams.
Heres a tip: If you have a really heavy or large laptop, some of the lighter-weight stand options might not be for you. Look at the product information for each laptop stand and see if there is any mention of a weight restriction.
Size
The size of a laptop stand is important if you want to work remotely and travel with it often. Lets say that you’re bringing your laptop stand home from work for the weekend. Do you want to lug around this big and heavy piece of metal?
I sure wouldn’t.
Id rather put something in my bag that can easily fold up and doesn’t take a lot of space.
The MOFT laptop stand wins in the size and the weight category. The catch with this laptop stand is that you mount it to the bottom of your laptop.
Usability
No laptop stand is perfect. In your search for the best one for you, make sure that your portable laptop stand is actually something that you can use.
For some laptop stands, they are one piece of material, so theres no setup required. Depending on your uses, this might be a good thing or a bad thing. This wont be good if you need any type of adjustability. This will be great if you need a place to keep your laptop.
The other consideration is for foldable and collapsible laptop stands specifically: if you have issues unraveling the laptop stand, or if the mechanism becomes weak, it may eventually become unusable.
I personally have had The Roost for several years and have no problems with usability. Its great, and I swear by it.
Price
Price is the last deciding factor when determining if a laptop stand is right for you and your work setup.
You’ll see laptop stands ranging anywhere from $30 to $100. If you’re on a tight budget, I have a few ideas for how you can make a DIY laptop stand.
When Im considering laptop stands, price isn’t a huge deal-breaker. Because a laptop stand is something that I use everyday, I consider the cost to be divided by how many years I get out of it.
For example, Ive had my Roost laptop stand since 2017. So, the overall cost is spread out over the years that Ive had it.
Laptop stands aren’t cars, or other high-ticket items, but they do hold their value really well. In fact, the Roost has gone up in price since I got mine in 2017.
If you ever want to sell your laptop stand in the future, it should hold its value and you should be able to get a good amount of money for it.
The best portable laptop stands
Now that we’ve gotten some of the basics out of the way, lets talk about which portable laptop stands are great for you.
The Roost
Since Ive talked about it a few times so far, Id say The Roost has been my favorite laptop stand in the past few years. It checks all of the boxes for me. It folds up, has a few different height adjustment settings and is lightweight.
Nexstand
The competitor of The Roost is the Nexstand. The Nextstand offers a lot of the same features as The Roost does.
From the reviews that Ive read, the Nexstand feels a bit looser than The Roost and doesn’t have the same exact level of confidence for its life expectancy.
It is almost half the price as the Roost laptop stand, and does almost the same thing. If you’re on a budget, or don’t need a laptop stand for an extended amount of time, the Nexstand is a great option.
Jubor Laptop stand
The Jubor laptop stand isn’t going to be the most durable laptop stand in the bunch, but, it is going to be one of the cheapest portable laptop stands that you can find.
If you’re on a tight budget and need an inexpensive laptop stand, Id suggest the Jubor laptop stand.
It folds down to a small size and is lightweight. Its best used for smaller laptops and even for tablets.
KENTEVIN Laptop stand
If you’re looking for additional features, the KENTEVIN laptop stand has you covered.
It has an interesting X-shaped design and is one of the only laptop stands that has a swing out phone stand. If you need a place for your phone on your desk, this would be a decent way to achieve that.
The layout of this laptop stand is hollow, which allows for better heat distribution on your laptop and allows you to pass various cables and cords underneath. This helps a lot with organization.
The design of this laptop stand folds flat. It wont be the most compact design, but it will be small enough where it can probably fit in the same compartment as your laptop.
The KENTEVIN pivots, so you can adjust your laptop into a wide variety of angles and heights, to fit your setup.
KXLY Laptop stand
The laptop stand from KXLY has a lot of great features that can be beneficial to your office setup. In terms of portability, though, it wont be as good as some of the lightweight options.
You wont be able to fold this laptop stand completely flat. It does have a low profile non-use state that will be great for bringing this laptop stand to and from an office.
It weighs 1.4 pounds. Its not the lightest stand in the bunch, but its made of a sturdy aluminum alloy, which accounts for the added weight.
Similar to other designs, the laptop tray has negative space that improves airflow for your laptop.
The height can be adjusted, which makes this perfect to achieve tougher viewing angles. You can easily use this laptop stand in your kitchen, to read recipes off your laptop, or bring the laptop even closer to a monitor that is raised on your desk.
SimpleHouseware mesh laptop stand
I really like this mesh laptop stand from SimpleHouseware. Its a no-frills laptop stand that I like because you can use it for things other than a laptop stand. It also happens to be very affordable, as one of the cheapest options on this list.
Let me explain.
For starters, it is a laptop stand. Or, at least that is what it is marketed as. As a laptop stand, it weighs 2.2 pounds, and folds almost completely flat. For that reason, it is portable and good to travel with.
Because the laptop stand is made of a metal mesh material, it vents very well.
The design aesthetic will fit in with other types of metal mesh paper holders and other desk accessories.
Earlier, I said that this laptop stand was great for other things. I can see this stand being used in the kitchen to help prop up cook books. You can also use this to study, to hold bigger textbooks. Lastly, for drawing, keeping a reference photo on this stand would work out very well.
MOFT Invisible Slim Laptop Stand
The paper-thin MOFT laptop stand is incredibly interesting. It has a unique design that allows you to use it as a laptop stand, and pack it away with a small footprint.
This is the lightest, smallest and most creative laptop stand on this list. It weighs only 3 ounces and is 1/9″ thick. Its made out of felt and built with unique PU and fiberglass material. It claims that it can hold laptops up to 18 pounds. Do they even make laptops that weight that much?
The catch with this laptop stand is that you need to mount it to the back of your laptop. When you don’t want to use it, youll still be carrying around the stand. And while this wont account for much (if any) extra size or weight, its still there.
Depending on how your laptop vents, this might not work for you.
MOFT also sells a portable standing desk option that looks very interesting, so check it out if you’re into unique products.
Laptop Tower Stand
These laptop stands are going to give you the most amount of vertical adjustability. You can raise these laptop stands to about 19″. Thats a lot of inches.
There are two companies producing similar laptop stand designs:
They effectively do the same thing, but there may be minor differences in material, packing and branding. Check out both of their links above.
These laptop stands are some of the better options for getting your laptop as close to your external monitor as possible. They are not ultra-portable, but I would feel comfortable taking these to and from work, a few times per week.
Nulaxy Adjustable Laptop Stand
This laptop stand from Nulaxy is ultra-portable, small, lightweight and practical. The price is reasonable, which makes it competitive with the rest of the portable laptop stands in this list.
When you see this laptop stand, it almost looks like a giant tablet stand. It has no frills, and does exactly what you’d expect it to do. It will hold your laptop.
A downside to this design is that the base, where the laptop sits, is not vented. If you have heat issues with your laptop, then this stand is not for you.