Laptops are great, of course, whether you’re travelling or just enjoying the flexibility of having a PC wherever you want in the house at any one time, instead of closeted in a fixed location. But if there’s one dimension in which they suck (barring upgradability – but then modern laptops are pretty nippy these days), it’s ergonomics. Laptops are excluded from the design standards that regular PCs have to adhere to, simply because it’s hard for them to comply within the form factor we expect.
I’m a little sensitive to ergonomics, having had bouts of RSI over the years, and of course my back problems. However, I still love my laptops – particularly since right now the only Mac I have is a laptop, so that’s where all my testing for OS X has to happen. The reason I’m raising this today is that, despite having limited my laptop time in recent months because of my back, I decided it was feeling good enough in recent weeks to try to finish the OS X support for CMake this weekend. It took quite a lot of time over 2 days to get everything sorted out, but I did manage it, and was pretty happy about it. My back though – not so much; today it’s more painful than it’s been in a while.
The trouble is that I can either use the laptop on the dining room table, which places the keyboard and screen at about chest height – which strains my mid-back because I have to sit up pretty straight to use it (ie exactly what my physio says I shouldn’t do), or, I can use it at my stand-up desk or on my lap, which then hurts my upper back because you have to hunch your neck over quite far instead. For me, mid-to-upper back strain is the main problem, not lower back as is more common (trust me to be different), so this is straining the exact area I don’t want to.
Of course the usual way to resolve it is to use a laptop stand and connect a separate keyboard and mouse, but that pretty much defeats the object of having a laptop in the first place if you have to cart those things around & have cables trailing about. There are other more modest stands just for the laptop itself but I’m not entirely convinced about their effectiveness given how little they can change the configuration (if you’ve used one, please shout 
)
It would be nice if laptops could start trying to address this. Maybe incorporating some kind of telescopic housing for the LCD, so you can put the keyboard and screen at the right height simultaneously. The main challenges with that are strength, space requirements and the centre of gravity I guess, but it would be nice. Or, maybe a simpler approach of just a detachable screen with fold-out legs or something. Am I nuts?
April 6th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
No you’re not crazy.
Agreed.
Laptops were supposed to be a solution to the problem you described. But know that they’re marketing that you should use them for everyday’s work, they should improve on this spot and keep in balance what they say with what they produce.
April 6th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
ooops, I said “but know that they’re…” when I meant “but NOW that they’re..”
Sorry
April 6th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Hey Simbad!
Can’t you just access your mac from your regular PC, over the network? Probably not ideal for graphics intensive stuff, but for programming, configuring, etc a local network should be more than enough.
Surely you can ssh to it. For graphical access, you probably can try the Chicken or some other vnc server.
April 7th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Hey! I feel your pain. Was doing some work on the couch the other day and thought I would go crazy! At work a friend has written a white paper about making laptop computing more comfortable on the go. I know nobody wants to read whitepapers but she has some interesting tips for creating a more ergonomic environment. Here’s the link. http://tinyurl.com/4e3wzu (pdf)
I’ve used a stand with my laptop and an external keyboard. My neck does feel better. I wish I had it right now. : – ) I almost wonder if the wireless external keyboards need to be smaller so you can tuck them in your bag easier? Good post!
April 7th, 2009 at 9:00 am
I agree with you about the more modest stand shown. Really they are just a band aid for the problem. Also if you’ve had RSI in the past they are not a good idea, as using them can cause more strain on the wrists.
It is more stuff to carry around, but the best solution is a lightweight laptop stand such as a Cricket laptop stand, and a separate keyboard and mouse.
April 7th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
@kikito: using a Mac through ssh is like walking through the Sistine Chapel with a blindfold on
April 7th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
“using a Mac through ssh is like walking through the Sistine Chapel with a blindfold on”
I believe MAC OS already has a VNC server built in. Once activated, you should be able to access it from windows using a free vnc viewer or a non-gratis one.
Inside your home network, you should be able to see all the flashy Mac OS effects on your bigger PC screen and it wouldn’t cost you a dime. I don’t know if you will have any problems with the “mac key”, though.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any Mac, but I’ve used vnc in the past for accessing unix machines from windows.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Yeah I was just trying to be amusing
It’s cool that Macs have VNC built in, although I’ve generally not used it because of my reliance on graphics hardware. I might give it a go just to see how well it works though.
@Michelle: thanks for the white paper, I do actually like reading stuff like this especially when it’s a subject I have a vested interest in!
April 7th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Last time I visited IKEA I saw a strange laptop table. Might be worth a try. At least its inexpensive
Here is the link: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00120818
April 9th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
The EvoBook laptop takes an interesting approach with a built-in stand and detachable keyboard and touchpad: http://www.thedesignblog.org/entry/evobook-laptop-concept-with-detachable-keyboard/
April 10th, 2009 at 10:40 am
@Dan: now that *is* interesting, thanks. That’s a smarter idea actually, detaching the keyboard and trackpad makes more sense, since they can be on a stable surface so that gets around the stability issues associated with detaching / extending the LCD. Nice – I hope they actually build one in the end (that’s just a concept AFAIK)
May 5th, 2009 at 8:45 am
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