A MacBook is one beautiful slice of technology, and it deserves only the most stylish accessories. With its graceful curves, the BookArc stand from TwelveSouth sleekly holds and displays your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air while also reducing its footprint on your desk to only 10x4 inches.

Most laptop stands we’ve tested are built to raise your open notebook’s screen up to eye level for a more ergonomic experience. But Mac laptops have that ingenious “lid-closed” mode, which lets you connect an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then close the lid and wake the Mac back up by tapping a key. This setup can actually speed up your Mac too. With the lid closed, all of your graphics card’s video memory is used for the external display, instead of being split between the external and the notebook display.

In fact, we attached our 2.4GHz MacBook Pro to a 23-inch Cinema Display and tested this with graphics-intensive Photoshop CS4. Our Photoshop Actions test was 22 percent faster with the Mac’s lid closed versus using the open laptop as an extended display.

But aside from those speed gains, the well-made BookArc simply looks great on our desk. It even inspired us to de-clutter the rest of our workspace, which--if you consider how many products move through here in a given week--can be classified as a minor miracle.

It comes with three silicone cushions to fit a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or slim MacBook Air, and the rubber feet keep the whole BookArc from sliding around. Occasionally, the act of sticking our MacBook Pro in the slot would dislodge the cushion a bit, so we had to straighten it with one hand while holding the ’Book with the other, but that’s a minor quibble since it didn’t happen very often.

Style plus function? How very Mac-like.

BookArc
COMPANY: TwelveSouth
CONTACT: www.twelvesouth.com
PRICE: $49.99
REQUIREMENTS: Any MacBook
Includes three silicone cushions to grip your 'Book and prevent scratches. Great looking. Nonslip foot pads.
Silicone cushions sometimes separate from metal arc, requiring you to use two hands to straighten.