Laptop stands for working from home: portable, fixed and adjustable, and which one gets the screen to eye level

The K2 is the stand for a desk that is not always the same desk. Folded it is a 36 × 3.8 × 3.8 cm baton weighing 234 g — lighter than most phone chargers — and it lives in the laptop sleeve. Opened, it is an X-frame of fibre-glass-reinforced nylon with eight height positions from 14 to 29 cm, the highest maximum of any stand here, rated by Nexstand for 9 kg and for laptops from 10 to 17 inches with a front edge under 2 cm thick.

The design is open, so air moves around the laptop, and the feet and grips are rubber; Nexstand includes spacers for very thin laptops and a nylon sleeve. The warranty is one year. The Amazon listing rounds the figures — 15 to 30 cm, a 2.2 cm edge — and we use Nexstand’s own.

What you trade for the weight is rigidity: a nylon X-frame flexes more than a metal riser when you prod the screen, and a thick gaming laptop with a chunky front edge will not sit in the grips. For a laptop that goes to the office on Tuesday and the kitchen table on Wednesday, with a folding keyboard in the same bag, nothing else here comes close.

The Curve Flex does what the mStand does and then folds. Two hinged arms raise the laptop to a maximum of 27.4 cm — Twelve South says the screen and camera go up to 22 inches from the desk — and tilt the base from 0 to 45 degrees, continuously rather than in steps; folded, it is 3 cm thick and 26.4 × 22.4 cm, and it comes with a neoprene sleeve and a hex tool for the hinges. Weight is 1.75 lb, about 794 g. It fits any laptop at least 8.66 inches wide and up to 7 lb (3.2 kg); the Amazon listing puts that as 10 to 17 inches.

Twelve South does not name the material on its own page; the listing says an aluminium frame with textured silicone along the arms, which matches the photographs. The warranty is one year, and the listing was temporarily out of stock when we checked.

This is the stand for a tall sitter or a standing-desk user who needs more than 15 cm of lift and does not want a permanent object on the desk, and for someone who moves between two desks and wants the same setup at both. At 794 g it is three and a half Nexstands in the bag — the price of hinges that hold a MacBook Pro steady at full height.

The mStand is a single sheet of 2.5 mm anodised aluminium bent into a C: 25.3 cm wide, 15 cm high, 19 cm deep, 1.46 kg. There are no hinges, no settings and no adjustment, and that is its case. The laptop sits on a padded shelf tilted toward you with a 2-inch hole at the back for the cable, the aluminium body conducts heat away, and the open back lets air through. Rain Design says it fits all MacBooks and most notebooks including the 16-inch MacBook Pro, and sells it in six colours to match them. The warranty is one year.

The 15 cm lift is right for an average-height adult with a 14- to 16-inch laptop at a 72–75 cm desk. If you are tall, or the laptop is a 13-inch, the screen top will still be below your eyes and there is nothing to be done about it except books. If it is right, it stays right, and the mStand is the stand you stop noticing — which, for something that sits in front of you eight hours a day, is the highest compliment.

Not for travel, obviously, and not for anyone whose desk is shared with a shorter or taller person.

The BoYata is the wide Z: a large aluminium platform with an airflow cut-out, four silicone pads and two hooks at the front lip so the laptop cannot slide, on two hinged arms over a flat base. The brand rates the design for laptops up to 17 inches and, on its N21 page, for 20 kg; the Amazon listing gives an adjustment range of 0 to 90 degrees and says it folds. BoYata’s site puts the optimal working angle at 30 degrees.

The caveat is the paperwork. BoYata’s own pages do not tie a height range or a weight to this exact listing: a comparison table on its N19 page gives 5 to 26 cm and 1.3 kg for stands of this type, and the Amazon listing for the N19 says 1.18 kg, so both figures are marked as pending. The warranty is 12 months according to the listing. Note also that boyata.com is not the brand’s website — iboyata.com is.

What you get is the most platform for the least money among the metal stands: a heavy laptop with a big footprint sits on it without overhang, and the hooks mean it stays there at steep angles. It is a desk fixture at around 1.3 kg, not a travel stand.

UGREEN’s riser is an all-aluminium platform with a slotted face for airflow and silicone padding, on two rods rising from a wide flat base, folding flat when not in use. It fits laptops and tablets up to 17.3 inches, and UGREEN’s two-year warranty applies. That is the whole of what UGREEN states.

What it does not state — on its own UK page — is the height range, the number of positions, the load or the weight. The Amazon listing gives 25 × 20.8 × 4.5 cm folded and 1.6 kg, which we record as pending, and describes airflow holes and dual support rods, which is how we matched the listing to UGREEN’s SKU 15925 (UGREEN uses five-digit item numbers; the LP codes seen on some retailer sites are not on its pages).

It is here because it is the metal stand people actually buy when the BoYata and the mStand look expensive, and because the two-year warranty is the longest of the metal adjustables. Buy it knowing the specification is thin; if the height range matters to you, the Nexstand and the Curve Flex publish theirs.

The Fellowes is a different object from the others: a flat plastic lift with fold-out front legs that tilts a laptop through eight angles, holds it with a soft-touch front ledge, and folds to 4.8 cm for a bag at 0.56 kg. Fellowes rates it for laptops up to 17 inches and 4 kg (a feature bullet says 4.5 kg), recommends using it with an external keyboard and mouse, and backs it with a five-year limited warranty — five times the metal stands’ one year. It was tested by FIRA International against EN ISO 9241-5, the office-ergonomics standard, in 2021; that certificate lapsed in 2024, so it is a stand that was tested, not one that is currently certified.

Fellowes does not state a height range, because the Quick Lift tilts more than it lifts: it raises the back of the laptop and angles the screen, which suits a laptop with a limited hinge opening and a user who still types on the laptop keyboard. It will not bring a screen to eye level on its own. The Amazon title says seven heights; Fellowes UK says eight.

If the desk is an office-style setup and the priority is a long warranty and a flat-folding lift for meetings, this is the one. If the priority is the HSE’s eye-level rule, look up the list.