Or: How to use your StandStand
StandStand shows up at the tailgate.
You can likely find many uses for your StandStand: while it’s designed as a portable standing desk for laptops, StandStand is so elegant and easy to move around that you might find yourself using it for your cookbook in the kitchen or a plate riser at the next Packers tailgate you attend. #HowDoYouStandStand?
Your guests might use one for a seat and a second as a side table for their drinks. Your daughter might even find that StandStand is the perfect height for a tea party!
The host was lucky to have two StandStands when the chairs ran out!
Our youngest customer!
But when you use StandStand with your laptop, how you orient things can affect your computer’s stability. A question we often receive is whether the top face panel should smile at you or away from you. This could depend on where you want shine the StandStand love on any given day. But it is also a matter of stability. The key is for your computer’s center of weight to be over the center of the trapezoid formed by StandStand’s base.
X marks the spot where your computer’s weight should be centered.
Base V facing away with a PC (left); base V facing towards you with Mac (center); heavy battery centered over the base V (right).
With most PCs, the heavy screens and batteries near the hinge means the large V of the base needed to point away from you. For a more evenly balanced MacBook, I like to turn the large V towards me so that when I indulge my bad habit of resting my wrists on the computer, the weight of my arms is supported by the long side of the trapezoid. Depending on your computer, your StandStand might be most stable if the front extends past the edge of the top panel in order to center the weight more fully over the base V (as in the photo).
On the topic of stability, you’ll notice some rotational play in your StandStand due to the flexibility of our birch and bamboo. (You can see the wood flex quite far without breaking in the dramatic stress test video halfway down our Kickstarter page.) But unlike the WorkEZ, which Dan Kois reviewed as “shaky and annoying” (in his amusing New York Magazine article, “Sitting is Bad For You. So I Stopped. For a Whole Month.”), there is hardly any movement as you type when you center the laptop’s weight over StandStand’s trapezoid base (especially if you don’t rest your wrists!).
When used as intended, StandStand should not wobble. If it does, check that all four rubber feet are still attached (and set at the far edges of the base), and that all four feet make contact with a flat table surface. (Write us at [email protected] if you need more rubber feet!) Ideally, your computer’s own rubber feet will make contact with StandStand’s top panel to prevent any sliding on the varnished surface. If that’s not the case, we’ll be glad to send some rubber feet that you can attach to the face panel or your computer to form a solid connection.
As always, we love to hear from you, so drop us a line or send a tweet @GetStandStand!
