If you’re like me, you spend a minimum of 8 hours a day working on your Mac. My primary machine is a Macbook Pro, and for the first several months of owning it, and using it as my primary machine, I suffered through typing on the keyboard and using the trackpad for mouse navigation for all 8+ of those hours working. That leads to back problems, slumped posture, wrist pain, and all kinds of general discomfort that just flat out isn’t very good for you.
So what can you do?
Getting a notebook stand is your best bet – and I have found that there is no better stand on the market than the mStand from Rain Design.
The mStand is a solid piece of aluminum construction. It’s heavy, and has a sturdy feeling about it that ensures that your laptop isn’t going to tumble off onto the floor if someone accidentally bumps your desk. The stand raises your screen about six inches giving you the feel and positioning of a standard desktop monitor. This has an amazing effect on your posture, and really helped me to be more comfortable while working.
Another benefit of the raised design is cooling. If your editing video or multi-tasking in any serious way, the Macbook Pro can get a little warm (hot enough to fry and egg “warm” sometimes), and the mStand keeps your system cooler because the aluminum panel acts as a heat sink and the tilt design increases airflow around your computer. I have notice significantly less heating issues since using the mStand.
From a design standpoint it doesn’t get much more “Apple-like” than the mStand. Rain Design actually worked with Apple to get approval to match the styling of the stand to fit seamlessly in with other current Apple designed products, and the result is a stand so slickly produced you’d think Apple designed it themselves.
Trying to find a negative about his stand is difficult, but one issue that may bother some users is the fact that the mStand does not swivel, and you cannot adjust the height level at all. If you want a stand that does both of these things, Rain has a solution in the iLevel. I don’t find the lack of these features to be a draw-back, however, primarily because i don’t have a use for them, and having them would take away from the slickness of the stands overall design.
The bottom line with the mStand is that it is very nearly perfect. After having used it for several weeks, I’m not sure I could go back to working on my Macbook Pro for a full work day without the mStand. It has become an essential part of my daily work. For $49 you’re just not going to find a better notebook stand.
Grade: 5 out of 5
2 thoughts on “Review: mStand from Rain Design”
For that price, I’d have docked it one star from the review.
@WyldKard
$49 is not too much to ask for this stand – Sure, you can get a cheaper, flimsier stand, but this thing is solid as a rock – and extremely well designed.