From cramped seats to that guy in the middle row who doesn’t quite understand the concept of the armrest boundary, working comfortably on an airplane isn’t exactly the most comfortable thing in the world. But perhaps trickiest of all is figuring out just where you can place your laptop so that you can see the screen while also keeping typing comfortable.
For example, when you place your laptop directly in your lap, you’re likely to hunch over the screen, tire quickly, and experience pain in your back and neck. However, placing the laptop on your tray table isn’t much better. If the person in front of you reclines, there’s pretty much no way to see the screen. Most people of smaller stature will also strain their muscles and joints by typing with their arms so far outreached, and the person in front of you will hate you if you spend the whole flight banging away on your keyboard.
According to the following article, however, there is an easy solution: Angle Your Laptop for Better Comfort. As the article demonstrates, all you have to do is place a simple tablet and laptop stand on the tray and fit your laptop on top of it and voila! You can raise your screen to an ideal height. (Wondering what that is? You know you’ve found an ideal screen height when your neck remains in a neutral position, straining neither up nor down, neither left nor right).
Just using a laptop and tablet stand, however, won’t solve the typing situation. For that we recommend a lightweight travel keyboard, which you can place in your lap while you comfortably type the day away. When paired together, these two accessories are a veritable much a mobile workstation.
For more great tips on working productively while on the go, we recommend reading that above article in full, as well as as our Mobile Ergonomics series.
