The 7 best laptop stands in 2024

One of the first things to do after you get one of the best new laptops is to hunt for great accessories. That can mean getting the best wireless mouse to carry around with you, upgrading to more consistent Wi-Fi with a PC Wi-Fi adapter, or even getting a carrying case for when you take it out to the coffee shop for work. One laptop accessory that is often overlooked, much to our despair, is the laptop stand.

A laptop stand can be a great source of comfort due to the increased ergonomics, reduced heat on your lap, and give your laptop better overall functionality on top of a desk, too. Some are even designed to help keep the laptop cool, something every owner of one of the best gaming laptops will know is important. So, look at the following list of the best laptop stands with a mind for quality and comfort, you’re sure to find something that meets your needs.

The best laptop stands in 2024

• Buy the Onn. Multi-Angle Laptop Stand if you want a fairly-priced laptop stand for a desk.
• Buy the Rain Design iLevel2 for a laptop stand with an aesthetic that matches perfectly with the MacBook style.
• Buy the Grovemade Wood Laptop Stand for a premium wooden choice.
• Buy the Vivo Laptop Notebook Desk Mount Stand for a height adjustable, standing laptop stand.
• Buy the HumanCentric Laptop Stand if you’re a hybrid worker that uses the company laptop at home.
• Buy the Twelve South Curve Stand if you have a small laptop.
• Buy the Insignia Ergonomic Laptop Stand for a surprisingly versatile budget pick.

Onn. Multi-Angle Laptop Stand

Best for most desks

For a quick purchase that won’t require too much overthinking, we highly recommend the laptop stand from Onn., which has a reasonable price, comes with the standard features you’ll expect in a laptop stand. You’ll also appreciate the no-slip pads that adorn the top of the aluminum frame, making putting your laptop on the stand a simple, worry-free procedure, and ultimately reducing damage to your laptop. It’ll also make it easier to plop your laptop on the stand with one hand, as well as make the transition from grabbing your laptop to starting working that much more seamless.

The Onn. Multi-Angle Laptop Stand will work with most laptops up to about 16 inches that are under 9 pounds, which is a wide amount of laptops. You can raise it to your heart’s content, but there is a possibility that you will overextend your raising to the point of pushing the stand off-balance. However, so long as you raise the stand to reasonable levels, you should find this stand to be particularly delightful.

Rain Design iLevel 2

Best for MacBooks

This simple design hides a surprising number of useful customization options. The slider you see at the bottom of the stand is actually used to control height, tilting the back support up and down for different angles so you can find just the right perspective. Its lower base is protected with rubber pads, as is the support surface, so your desk and laptop won’t get damaged — and nothing will slide around uncontrollably. The slim nature of the stand and back opening also helps reduce heat.

We find the Rain Design iLevel 2 to be a great companion to the best MacBooks in large part due to its design and aesthetic choices as well. The anodized aluminum is coated with a nice silver specifically to match MacBooks and the curved, minimalist design should also appeal to MacBook owners.

Grovemade Wood Laptop Stand

Best premium choice

Grovemade is known for their handmade computer desk accessories created with high-quality materials, nearly all featuring gorgeously finished wood. The Grovemade Wood Laptop Stand is no different, made from either American Black Walnut or Eastern Hardrock Maple Plywood. The finished product, crafted in the USA, has a width of 18 inches at its narrowest and a depth of nearly a foot, making it suitable for any laptop. With a rear height of six inches (good for neck health) and a front height of just over three inches, your laptop will be lifted a gentle amount, with the keyboard still accessible but still not as comfortable to use as a wireless addition.

Everything about this laptop stand screams sturdy. Built at a half-inch of thickness, to where it supports a hypothetical 200 pounds of weight, many customers could sit on it. Meanwhile, the natural cork feet will help keep your prized laptop from sliding off the office desk or sliding to and fro as you tap at it. At the front, a stainless steel stop prevents the laptop from falling down into your desk. Domestic, vegetable-tanned full grain leather covers this metal stop to protect your laptop case from scratches. With all of these touches, it should come as no surprise that the main downfall for the Grovemade Wood Laptop Stand is its price, which matches the luxury of the product.

Vivo Laptop Notebook Desk Mount Stand

Best adjustable standing

Vivo is perhaps best known for the monitor arms they create, which free up desk space and allow you to position your monitor more precisely to your needs. But, they take the same tech and translate it quite well to the world of laptop stands. With the Vivo Laptop Notebook Desk Mount Stand, you can use a simple clamp on to your desk and position the laptop in just about anyway you want.

There’s a 360 degree axis of rotation about the main support pole, meaning you can face the laptop towards the front of your desk or even rotate it around to the back side, making this ideal for those of us that also want to stand with our laptops from time to time. The 17 inches of height adjustment along the pole also help this aim. We also appreciate the holes born into the aluminum sheet upon which your laptop will sit, all of which increase airflow to your laptop. Perhaps the only downside is that you’ll need to be near a desk that can support the clamp, so smooth-sided computer desks are out for the Vivo.

HumanCentric Laptop Stand

Best for hybrid workers

Here’s a situation that’s increasingly common, you have a hybrid job and a dedicated laptop for that job. While you’re at work, it is fine enough to use the laptop at work, but when you get home you’d rather use your own equipment. Yet the job still insists that you use the work laptop. The HumanCentric Laptop Stand gives you an excellent place to “dock” this forced-upon-you laptop in a highly stable area (so it won’t get damaged) while you plug it into your KVM monitor and get busy with your regular equipment.

While just about laptop stand could be used for this purpose, we particularly enjoy the HumanCentric for its solid weight and permanent appearance. It looks like it is a part of your desk and will, at least psychologically speaking, make the imposition of your work laptop feel more natural. Made of aluminum and a premium wood board of either black walnut or maple wood, the materials might very well appear as if they were of the stuff your desk’s original construction. You should also note that while the HumanCentric Laptop Stand will work comfortably with just about any laptop of 16 inches or less, it was tested with a MacBook Pro during construction, so if you use this surprisingly common developer laptop for work, you’re in luck.

Twelve South Curve Stand

Best for small laptops

If you’re a minimalist, that aesthetic may have also taken over your style of laptop as well. In this case, it doesn’t hurt to get a smaller laptop stand. The Twelve South Curve Stand is a single solid bar of aluminum with no moving parts or joints, giving it a sense of stability that not all laptop stands can manage. Additionally, the absence of a solid surface for your laptop to sit upon makes this laptop stand great for laptops that overheat — there’s just a lot more airflow. Should your laptop have any downward facing speaker holes, this laptop stand will also give them more room to push out sound effectively.

While you cannot adjust the height of the Twelve South Curve Stand — again, it is a solid bar with no moving parts — it is designed to give a user-friendly 6.5 inch rise to your screen. That will give you a typical viewing angle much more akin to what the best computer monitors give from their base stands. As a result, we aren’t too sad about the lack of height adjustment here, as when the height is right the height is right. Instead, you may find the minimalism comes to bite you. While we expect that slightly larger laptops will work, the manufacturer advises you keep this stand to being with laptops under 10 inches wide. You might also find the stand to be somewhat of a lightweight, easier to move accidentally than you would like. However, for the small, pared-down look, ergonomic default height, and airflow advantages given to any laptop carried by the Twelve South Curve Stand, we think that it will be well-received in the right circumstances.

Insignia Ergonomic Laptop Stand

Best budget option

If you’re looking for a cheaper option and really just want something to raise your laptop up while you work, we think you’ll like this option from the Best Buy brand, Insignia. It supports most 17 inch laptops or less, making it rather flexible in what it does. The shiny silver finished aluminum also works, from an aesthetic perspective, with the very common silver color of most laptops.

Again, if you’re looking for something affordable, this is the way to go. We do note that, even among laptop stands that aren’t truly made for being typed on, this one is considered quite wobbly. You’ll definitely want to connect it to a monitor and pull out your own keyboard when using it, but if that was your intent from the get go, this is a great money-saver that still looks nice.

How we chose these laptop stands

The best laptop stands were chosen for their ability to fit many different circumstances, aesthetic choices, and laptops. In other words, variety was king. As a result, it is somewhat difficult to report an overarching list of “musts” when it comes to laptop stands. Instead, here are some things that we thought about as we chose the items on the preceding list.

Stability

A laptop stand should be quite stable. However, the word “stability” has several different meanings when it comes to laptop stands. Instead of taking it as a catch all term, consider the following:

• Shakiness — A laptop stand that shakes or jiggles easily can be especially annoying.
• Mobility — While you may wish to move your laptop stand from time to time, you won’t wish to do so accidentally.
• Strength — A laptop stand made of strong materials is less likely to move in unexpected ways.

Factors that increase the stability of a laptop stand include its weight, bottom surface, and pliability of its moving parts. Heavier laptop stands are less likely to move when bumped for the same reason that other heavy objects on your desk are unlikely to move when bumped, things with more mass require more force to be moved. The bottom surface of your laptop stand will also affect movement. High-friction surfaces will keep your stand steadier. Likewise, strips of rubber on top of your laptop stand will keep the laptop from sliding across its surface. Finally, while not all laptop stands will have moving parts, it is important that those that do can support the weight of a given laptop without moving or slowly falling downwards.

Airflow

By and large, most laptops can handle being placed on a solid surface. To not be able to would be a serious design flaw. That being said, many benefit from extra airflow and openness on their undersides. Even without vents, this extra exposure to open air can help reduce the heat of a hot bottom. With a vent and the effect is even greater. Additionally, some laptops might have open speaker holes along the bottom, and an open surface can allow that sound to spread more easily.

This is by no means a feature of all or even most laptop stands, but it is nice when present.

Height

Unless you’re planning on plugging your laptop into another monitor, you’ll probably want to pay attention to what height it pushes your laptop’s screen up to. If the stand is not adjustable, we aim for around six inches or so, as unless you’re going for a stacked vertical monitor setup, you’ll likely find that height rather comfortable.

Aesthetic

Laptop stands demand desk space. As such, they immediately become more than functional. They’re just too visually in the way to care at least somewhat about their appearance. Here, we’ve provided overall good-looking choices that all have something — whether it be natural wood, total minimalism, or a MacBook-inspired color palette — that will match your tastes.

This article is managed and created separately from the Digital Trends Editorial team.

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