9 best laptop stands and risers to improve posture and reduce strain

Twelve South makes premium, semi-official accessories for a range of Apple products. You’ll often see the brand’s laptop stands propping up MacBooks in Apple stores, which is about as ringing an endorsement as you can get.

The Twelve South curve flex uses two pairs of hinges to raise your entire laptop off the desk, letting you raise the screen and angle the keyboard however you please. Those few bonus inches make a real difference when you’re spending an entire day working on your laptop, bringing your webcam to eye-level and positioning your screen at a more comfortable height, compared with more-basic folding laptop stands.

It’s continuously adjustable, requiring a bit of effort to manoeuvre it into shape, but those hinges are strong enough to keep a 16in MacBook pro aloft without sagging. Being able to position your laptop in exactly the right spot helps with dual-screen desktop setups, too. The entire thing folds flat when you need to move or store it.

You get a tool included to tighten up the hinges when they start to loosen, though our stand has shown no sign of slack during testing. There’s also a storage bag to stop it damaging anything else in your bag during travel. Silicone padding covers every contact point, as well as protecting the laptop stand itself when it’s fully folded up.

Here’s a super-basic £20 option. This functional laptop stand doesn’t have a riser but is height adjustable by snapping it to one of five fixed angles. That raises your screen off the desk by about 8in, depending on your device, creating enough elevation to keep you comfortable all day.

The material and finish are budget-grade flimsy but that shouldn’t be an issue unless you plan on moving the laptop stand around a lot during the day.

A simple hooking mechanism holds the upper part in place. Once there’s the weight of a laptop pushing down on it, the setup becomes nice and sturdy. Foam padding in the bottom groove and along the top helps protect from scratches and slipping, and that whopping great hole ensures optimal airflow around your device.

The Logitech casa pop-up desk is a complete work-from-home setup comprising a wireless keyboard and trackpad, all stored neatly inside a bento-style box that unfolds to become its own laptop stand. When you’re finished working, you can pack the entire thing away and store it on a bookshelf, or chuck it in your bag to take to the office. It has a Moleskine-style band to keep it closed, and a textile-effect cover and spine to blend seamlessly into your home decor.

The laptop stand element uses a very basic design, in which the cover folds into a tent shape, raising your screen by about 8in. There are grippy pads at every contact point to prevent slipping and sliding, too, though, we found the lower grips were just barely big enough to support heavier laptops.

The casa is expensive, relative to other laptop stands in our list, but, for the money, you’re getting an excellent Logitech keyboard and a trackpad included, which are both essential accessories for use with any laptop stand.

Read the full Logitech casa pop-up desk review

This sleek-looking V-shaped laptop stand is designed around the MacBook and uses a piston-style adjustable riser to elevate your display by up to 6in. So, what’s the big fuss about here? Well, this particular stand doesn’t use the usual lip to stop your laptop from sliding off. Instead, that V-shaped part has a seriously grippy non-slip surface, providing more than enough friction to hold your device in place. The result is your MacBook looks a tiny bit like it’s hovering above your clean, uncluttered desk. You can also grab your laptop from any direction, with no chance of catching the edge of the device on the stand.

Made from a single piece of curved aluminium, the Twelve South curve laptop stand is described by Apple’s own website as a “modern sculpture”.

That might be a smidge hyperbolic but, art theory aside, it’s a neat-looking, minimalist laptop stand that doesn’t fuss around with adjustable angles and risers. Unlike more complicated folding laptop stands, it doesn’t resemble a strange kitchen accessory when a laptop isn’t sitting on it. If you’re house proud, this will fit right into your home office, though, unsurprisingly, it’s way too awkwardly shaped for carrying around.

The modest 6in boost is ideal for a dual-monitor setup, and just about adequate for use with an external keyboard and mouse. If you want even more altitude, you should look elsewhere in this list.

The Z-shaped design of this laptop stand gives you a lot more height than a basic, angled option, and allows for greater flexibility when it comes to positioning your screen exactly the way you want it. That’s useful if you’re using your laptop side by side with your regular monitor, or if you want to get your display up to a height that will keep your neck muscles happier for longer.

The stand is made from lightweight aluminium and collapses down to a size that’s easy to store away, though, the lack of a carry bag means it could scratch anything with which it shares a backpack. There’s some wobbliness, too, particularly at full extension.

You should generally avoid using the laptop’s own keyboard while it’s perched on a stand – it’s an ergonomic nightmare, for one – but, if you insisted on trying, you’d find this laptop stand a bit bouncy.

The compact shape of this fixed-height, aluminium laptop stand effectively makes it disappear from view when your laptop is placed on top of it.

Designed for the MacBook, it even has the same cable-tidying hole found on the iMac’s stand – though it’s less useful here, for the obvious reason that all your laptop’s ports are on the sides, not the back. Still, it looks the part, whether it’s holding up a Windows or an Apple device.

Ikea’s budget-friendly laptop stand is assembled into an elegant, simple shape with a rise of around 6in – enough to bring your laptop’s display to a height that’s comfortable to work at all day.

The design is unfussy, using layered wood and a white veneer that should blend seamlessly into most home office setups. There are soft pads on the underside to protect surfaces and hold the stand in place on the desk, but the lack of any rubberised grips on top makes it more likely that your laptop will slide around when you’re adjusting the angle of your screen or plugging stuff in.

Most laptop stands costing less than £20 are made of cheap, thin metal or moulded plastic, and while Ikea’s wooden option is hardly premium in its materials, it’s a decent choice if you want a stand that doesn’t resemble a miniature torture rack when you’re not using it.

Working from bed obviously isn’t the ideal way to get things done, but there are plenty of non-hangover-related reasons why you might need to, such as injury or fatigue. Whatever your situation, a laptop tray makes using your laptop while reclined a lot more comfortable and safe.

This 2ft-wide stand from Argos has adjustable legs and a tilting surface, so you can angle your laptop properly. It can also be used on a desk, like a traditional laptop riser. There’s a flat section at one side for your stuff, which is too high to comfortably use a mouse on, but gives you a bit of extra space for your phone, your notes or your snacks.

The leg adjusters are fiddly, and the simple MDF and metal construction won’t be winning any design awards, but the stand is functional enough and folds away neatly when you don’t need it.