LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0

The good: Portable; sturdy.

The bad: Heavy; provides only moderate protection against heat.

The bottom line: Portable and sturdy, this lap desk is moderately effective in protecting your lap from heat.

Editor's note: One of the hidden dangers of extended laptop use is a serious case of lap burn from an overheated system, so we have revisited the popular LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0, adding results from our new lap desk heat test. (2/8/07)

The LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0 is a heavyweight in its class. At almost 1.5 pounds, it adds significantly to your back strain. Luckily, its price of $29.99 (as of March 2005), its versatility as a lap desk and a laptop stand, and its sturdy construction make up for its awkward size. As a lap desk, the Laptop Desk measures more than 20 inches long, with room for the largest laptops and an external mouse, but it folds in half to 10.5 inches long and 11 inches wide, so it'll fit in most laptop bags. The desk's surface is striped with rubberized material, which securely grips your laptop, and it has grooves, which increase airflow under the laptop for cooling. The thick plastic desk did an adequate job of insulating our laps against heat in our informal tests, but after about 20 minutes of use with a hot laptop, we noticed some warming. With a quick flip, the Laptop Desk can be transformed into a sturdy laptop stand for your desktop. In our tests, the stand supported our 8-pound laptop with ease.

The LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0 can sit flat across your lap, or for maximum cooling, it can fold in half and sit at an angle, allowing for air to move underneath the system. This raises the back of your laptop about three inches from the table (or your lap), and this was how we set up the LapWorks 2.0 for our test.

Using a popular business laptop, the Lenovo T60, we put the LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0 to the test by running CNET Labs' grueling Multitasking test on the system and recording the CPU temperature.

Running the test without the laptop desk, the CPU got as hot as 80.8 degrees. After a cooldown period, we ran the test again, this time with the laptop sitting on the LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0. The highest temperature recorded during the second test was 78.8 degrees, a fairly minor decrease. We saw a much bigger drop, to 74.4 degrees, using the Xpad Laptop Desk, which leaves more of the laptop's surface area exposed to the air. The LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0, however, is lighter and more portable than the Xpad, which resembles a bulky kitchen cutting board.