Published on July 26th, 2022 | by Scott De Lacy
Bonelk Elevate Gamer LED Laptop Stand Review
Getting your home office / gaming station setup right, is crucial. If you want to be truly happy and comfortable with your computing pursuits, you need to have your screen at the right height. That’s fine if you have a monitor or monitor arms even, but what do you do with your laptop?
The Bonelk Gaming Laptop Stand raises the height of your laptop from 40mm to 200mm for better ergonomics and improves your posture. Level-up your gaming experience with maximum airflow areas for device cooling, large non-slip silicone pads and fully customisable viewing angles with tilt functionality. Enhance your mood lightning with custom lighting effects. Choose between solid colour or breathing effects from 7 different backlit LED colours. Constructed from premium grade aluminium, optimise your desk space and fold down for easy transportation. Suits laptop sizes from 11” to 17”. – Bonelk website
Unboxing
The box itself is a simple fold/lift lid design and showcases the stand and its functions in simple and easy to read language.
The first thing you notice when holding the box is the weight, which immediately gives you a sense of reassurance that this is likely to be a top quality product.
The stand is 100% fully assembled. No tools, no assembly, no fuss. Nice!
The box inside contains the instruction booklet and the USB cable for the lighting system.
The cable is a stylish flat design which you could possibly tape down for cable management. Included is a USB-A adaptor which has a nice logo on it. Not too bad actually.
First impression
Extending the stand out was an immediate act of accomplishment; not only is it strong, but it is simple and elegant in design.
You can see each hinge and immediately and instinctively interpret the different combinations of movement.
The first movements require a bit of force, but that just increases your confidence that it wont move after it is set.
Looking underneath we see the lighting system. The control box is tucked underneath and for the most part is non assuming, but the ribbon of lighting surrounding the underside of the frame does stick out and looks a bit out of place whilst off. That said, depending on the position, and with a laptop on the stand, you wont notice it.
The large heavy base plate is quite serious and is a big reason this stand is so sturdy.
The rubber pads on the bottom, the top where the frame folds/touches and most importantly on the laptop surface, are all incredibly strong, wont simply peel off and seem to handle lateral pressure quite well – meaning that they wont stretch out or slip around, at least that is the idea.
Grip and Strength test
Given that there is some serious weight in the stand and some serious range of motion possible, one has to wonder where the limits are?
The stand has edge supports for the bottom/leading edge of the laptop, so all the weight will act downwards to these two points. So what are the extremes?
First, a test on a flat surface, with the heaviest laptop around on hand, a 17” HP Probook, for this test we are just wanting to see if there is any movement, even at more extreme angles where the weight is acting downwards toward the hinges, and after 10-20 minutes, nothing. Solid.
Taking advantage of a tilting laptop table, we can adjust the angle from 0 degrees to crazy. Again using the heaviest laptop and a high tilt on the stand, we can see that the rubber grips the base plate to the table fairly well. No movement and no deformation of the rubber feet afterwards.
Now for the crazy tilt, 30 degrees? Nope, we cant overcome gravity, but at around 22-23 degrees the rubber held, mostly.. Okay there was some travel, until the pads dug in and settled.
Now this isn’t normal, and you wouldn’t do this for real, but knowing that this stand can hold its own and likely will not budge if you accidentally step on the power/HDMI cable, is a really nice feeling.
At the harsher angles, where the stand was butting the railing of the table, the stand still did not move laterally when pushed, and the laptop did not move either.
Lighting feature
The lighting feature is very simple. A single button to rotate from many pulsing colours. It looks pretty, but the brightness is more on the subtle side.
One thing to mention here, this will draw power from your USB bus even when the laptop is off, so there may be some consideration here, aside from the fact that you lose a USB port if you do connect the lighting system to your laptop. You can always power it from an external power supply.
Final thoughts
The Bonelk Elevate stand is exceptional. The build quality is outstanding, there are no rough edges or imperfections whatsoever and the functionality is incredible.
Whether you want a laptop riser to get it off the desk, what to increase the height by a small or incremental amount within the stands range, or a full blown tilt down setup, you can do it with the Bonelk Elevate Gamer LED stand.
You could also use this stand as an easel for typing up your notes, just saying.
If you are the type of person who wants the LED lighting and cant be satisfied with strip lighting around your desk, then this is the stand for you, but for most people, you may want to consider this alternative Bonelk Elevate stand at a cheaper price point. The difference is the single but larger arm and larger flatter surface for the stand.
Having seen first hand the quality of this stand, you can be confident that both of these stands would offer some serious value for money
Summary: This laptop stand is exceptionally well designed, sexy, and uh 'stands' out on its own. (Sorry). If you are looking for a laptop stand, don't go past this one.