Laptop computers are convenient and popular, but sometimes they can be a real pain in the neck. And shoulders, back, arms, wrists, and other body parts.

Portables are designed for portability, not ergonomics. Keyboards always are compromised and the screen location requires you to bend your neck more than you should. Furthermore, with today's high-powered units, actually putting a laptop on your lap can leave you cooked medium-well.

Fortunately there are some good solutions available -- and they won't cost you a fortune, either.

For road warriors, the Laptop Desk v.2.0 from LapWorks ($30) is a don't leave home without it item. This is a terrific example of how even the most simple product can be enhanced through thoughtful design. (A Targus-branded version is sold as the  PA243U Notebook Portable LapDesk).

Laptop Desk is a hinged black plastic piece that folds up to fit in your bag and unfolds to a 20-inch span that sits on your lap. Based on that description, you probably are not impressed. But here the devil is in the details.

Laptop Desk is rubberized on both sides so that it won't slip off your lap and your computer won't slip off it. There are wide channels across it to provide ventilation so that your laptop's heat will dissipate instead of barbequing you.

Plus in the "2.0" model there is a little snap-out flap on the bottom that lets you prop up the two halves of the desk into a wedge for use when working at a desk. With your notebook on the wedge, the keyboard is angled for more comfortable typing and the monitor is raised so you don't have to bend your neck as much. It makes working on a long report or other document less tiring.

LapWorks sells the unit in a variety of bundles, of which the most useful may be the $50 "Ensemble," which adds the MouzPad -- a snap-on extension for the desk to provide more room for mousing and the SwivlPad a grippy rubber turntable. The latter lets you swivel your notebook on a table to show the screen to different viewers (for example, when giving a presentation to a small group) without running the risk of scratching your client's furniture because of a rough spot on the bottom of your notebook.

Griffin Technologies, which seems to specialize in cool designs (among other things, they make iTrip and iTalk for the iPod), has a simple but elegant solution for using your laptop at home or office -- or home office -- with an external keyboard: the $30 iCurve.

In the case of iCurve the usual dictum that a picture is worth a thousand words doesn't work. Photos do not convey that this isn't the usual flimsy stand they sell at the superstores, but a hefty, very solid clear plastic device with a U-shaped base and two angled arms for your notebook. Your laptop perches on the iCurve with its keyboard angled upward so that the screen comes up to proper eye level and is about the right viewing distance from your eyes when you are using the external keyboard.

All edges are surfaces are smoothly rounded off, partly to avoid scratching or catching things and partly for elegant esthetics. iCurve ships with grip strips on the arms to hold on to the notebook and stick-ons for the base. Griffin suggests you try it without them as the weight of the notebook usually is enough to hold it in place, but I advise putting them on -- they make iCurve rock solid when you pop disks in and out of drives or connect things to the notebook's ports. (I suspect the advice is because circular the anti-skid pads are visible though the clear plastic, which offends Griffin designers' sense of style.)

The "i" nomenclature reflects Griffin's prominence in the Mac market, and the fact that the clear plastic matches the look of Apple's keyboards and mice. But, then, clear will match pretty much any color scheme and similarly the iCurve will work with any notebook and any keyboard.

Propping up a laptop is an easy enough thing to do -- a stack of phonebooks would work, for example. But making the setup look good is something else entirely, and iCurve makes it look like you have a custom-designed notebook workstation. Not bad for 30 bucks.

(c) 2004 Al Gordon.

In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a principal in the Boston-area strategic consulting firm, Mary Fifield Associates, www.maryfifieldassociates.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can reach Al Gordon at:

al@tnpcnewsletter.com