Multi-purpose knee table 19'' laptop tray travel laptop desk lapdesk black

Product Information

This review covers the best lap desks, some of which double as standing desks when used in tandem with a kitchen table or in your home office. They’re portable, so you can make a desk of any spot, and can be used for reading, eating, and jotting down notes from the comfort of, well, anywhere that’s comfortable.

Not surprisingly, some of the lightest and most affordable models we tested are also the most portable. It is very lightweight, easy to carry and play, and allows you to enjoy your spare time, breakfast or dessert on the bed and sofa. It has a stand for propping up a phone and a tablet, so you can stream on your phone as you snack in bed — but, again, there’s no slot through which to feed a phone charger. It feels sturdy and stable in your lap, and its honey-colored wood (bamboo, as the name suggests) is durable, plentiful, and relatively sustainable to harvest.

If you favor a neutral solid color over vibrant prints and want more ventilation: The Wishacc Bamboo Wood Lap Desk is a great alternative to our top pick. At times when I’m working from my couch, my MacBook fits nicely on the surface, but there’s no room for a pen and paper, so if I want to scribble anything down, I do have to go back to my desk. The leg height and desktop tilt angle can each be adjusted with a simple flip of a lever, even when the desk is already loaded with your gear. After testing for weeks, most of our testers gravitated toward the adjustable models for their versatility of working positions.

If you’d like your home office to match your other decor, Grovemade’s Walnut Laptop Stand might do the trick. My colleague now has two of these, so he doesn't have to worry about toting it back and forth between home and the office—but you can, because it folds up to just 9. But since the Designer comes in a wide variety of colorful patterns (seven at the time of this writing), we think most people can find one they like, even if it wouldn’t be their first choice.

The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our lives—from culture to business, science to design. The Arlo Skye The Lap Desk’s large 19-inch size makes it cumbersome to use, and the microbeads in the cushioned base feel like hard plastic compared to the soft compression beads found in our main pick. I've been using this Superjare laptop stand on and off for a few years, and even after testing all the others for this guide, it's still one of my favorites.

Further enhancing comfort, the desktop surface can be tilted up to approximately 45 degrees, allowing you to adjust to positions on the couch, on a bed, or on the floor. It still costs the same as many full-size desks, but you get portability and a relatively small footprint. A high-quality lap desk can provide a comfortable base to work on, a more uniform work surface, a more ergonomic body position, and can help prevent your computer from heating up your lap.Similar to our comfort metric, the adjustable table-style desks are the highest performers regarding adjustability.