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Lap Desks
I have a 15" laptop and have used a number of lap desks over the years, and none have satisfied me. I don't really need a mouse pad space (trackpad) but it wouldn't hurt to have a mouse space available for gaming. I sit in a very large chair so using the armrests isn't an option. I'm just curious what experience you all have with various lap desks. Any particular favorites? I've seen shelves that you can slide over your chair, to glorified pieces of plywood, but what have you turned up?
The "lap desk" I use is basically just a chunk of smooth wood with sort of a bean-bag pillow attached to the bottom. $10 from my local college marketing class. Works perfectly, doesn't get too hot, etc.
It's not technically a lap desk, but I've been using one of these for a few years now.
It's sturdy enough to hold a 19" CRT, keyboard, and mouse, adjusts easily, and has wheels so you can just roll it wherever you want. Yeah, it's expensive, but it's worth it.
I have used the lapinator for the last 2 years. It is comfortable and dissipates heat well. www.lapinator.com
Institutional cookie sheet. Large heat-dissipating aluminum tray with raised edges. Enough extra room for a compact mouse or other stuff.
I'd check your laptop fans and make sure they are operation and not clogged.
I had a serious heat issue with a gateway until I opened it up and used compressed air to blast away some serious dust. What came out looked akin to dryer lint. No wonder that thing was getting hot.
The cleaning helped tremendously, but I had to do it fairly often. I consider issues such as this design flaws.
I have....it's DEFINITELY worth it. I bought it from LapDawg and found they have pretty good customer service. The price includes shipping which is why the product seems a bit more expensive. The product itself is quite unique. It can transform into 5 different table modes they claim. They have a pretty good gallery of the product on the right nav. Here's a pic of my fav position http://www.lapdawg.com/gallery/laptop-stand/pages/laptop-stand-mid-6.html It takes some getting used to, but it's really quite useful once you get the hang of it. HG
And even more explosive if it's a Dell laptop!
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
Depends on whether you have a real "laptop" or one of those 'luggable' "portable desktop replacements."
I have a 15" ThinkPad and it's definitely a find-a-table sort of deal. Although it has a nice keyboard and TrackPoint, it's so heavy that I'm constantly fighting to keep it from sliding away if it's on my lap, and it gets quite hot (and it has an exhaust vent that's easy to block if it's not on a table). My SO's Dell (some sort of monstrous thing, maybe a 17"?) is even worse. They both have a lot of sharp corners and hard edges.
But on the other end, I have a 12" iBook, an old G3 model, that works fine on my lap. It gets warm but not uncomfortably hot, the trackpad is positioned so that you can move back and forth from it to the keyboard without a lot of problems, it's light and doesn't slide much, and there's no hot-air exhaust to worry about blocking. It's not quite "curl up with a book" small and light, but it's pretty close. Also, even though it's 5 years old, the battery still runs for hours longer than the ThinkPad or the Dell.
I have no idea whether the current 12" Apple laptops are as "lappable" as my old one, but you could do worse than to pick up an old G3. It would probably run Ubuntu quite handily.
Anything bigger than 12", IMO, is too big for real 'laptop' use.
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