The Ili laptop stand: A wooden laptop stand that retails at £39.99. My advice? Save your money.
Where do I begin? I could start with what Ili states is their ergonomic and lightweight design, or the environmentally friendly approach Ili have taken when sourcing the materials that have gone into the making of this stand. Maybe I could start on the flimsy and rickety structural design of the Ili laptop stand.
There are very few praises I can give this product but, in my attempt to give a fair review, let’s go through them.
Firstly, Ili is on a planet-saving mission, opting to break away from environmentally unfriendly plastic – a staple material for most products. Instead, the Ili stand is made of a lightweight wood that holds in place three flimsy metal rods your expensive laptop precariously sits on.
How do you set up the Ili stand?
Firstly, you must wiggle free the three rods, flip the first wooden panel up so the logo is facing you and then slot each rod into the holes on the panel you flipped, and after that, you’re good to go. Simple enough – but maybe too simple for the stand you are trusting to hold your laptop at some height?
Lightweight and portable
The stand is undoubtedly incredibly light and portable. Portability is one of the Ili stand’s main marketing points. Ili emphasise this by providing you with a canvas pouch for you to slot your stand into when on the move. One feature that does make this product stand out from the crowd is its ability to collapse into a flat easily packable piece of wood – think IKEA flatpack furniture, just in reverse.
Unfortunately, that’s where the positives end, and the negatives start.
My laptop felt unsafe
Let’s begin with the stability. The entire purpose of any laptop stand is to hold your laptop on an elevated platform. Now, the Ili stand did stop me from hunching over my laptop like a caveman, but it didn’t feel safe.
However presumptuous I may be, I expect any product that is holding my expensive laptop in the air to be stable. From the moment I sat my laptop atop its new throne, I feared for its safety. The design leaves your laptop teetering on the edge of three excruciatingly thin metal poles that look as if they wouldn’t be strong enough to hold up a chihuahua sized tent.
Along with this, the considerable wobble made me come to fear the slightest gust of wind would cause my laptop to come crashing down.
I was fearful that the slightest gust of wind would cause my laptop to tumble
I’m not going to beat around the bush. It’s three pieces of wood that have been glued together with a few tent poles. I can’t help but feel this is missing several key features of a decent stand: adjustable height and angle, heat dissipation, or any form of cable management – to name a few.
I find it hard to give a reason why this stand deserves the shockingly high price of £39.99. For the same price, there are many other options out there that offer all the features the Ili stand lacks.
I’m also fairly confident you could build your own version for under £5.
