Customer Reviews

Logitech Portable Lapdesk N315

5 star:		(149)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Sometimes simple is better. This is a very simple, portable and well-designed lapdesk that performs it's job well as an extra barrier between the lap and a notebook, laptop or netbook. The lapdesk has a mouse pad built into it that can be slid in and out. The lapdesk is covered in a silicone-like material that helps to keep a laptop in place and is also easy to clean.

This Logitech item is well made and does well in securing a 15" (maximum) laptop and helping to dissipate heat. I am giving it 5 stars for a simple, usable and durable design and functionality. Please keep in mind that this is not meant as a laptop cooling device but is only meant to be used as a stabilizing and heat shielding device on one's lap.

Update: I have now used the lapdesk with the mousepad extension and found one huge ergonomic design flaw that led me to sore nerves in my wrist and carples. There is an edge that extends around the mouse pad that is raised. When mousing, your wrist will run into it and after some time of mousing could get sore and irritated. If you are a person that intends to use this part of the lapdesk a lot, think twice. I think a better design would incorporate a curve at the top and bottom. I understand that this edge is probably functional in it's ability to keep the mouse within the boundaries of the mousepad. Some design change would be helpful to preserve tender wrists or those people who will use the mousepad as a regular thing. For the moment, I am using my Smart Glove Wrist Support , Medium along with the lapdesk to save my wrist.

Ergonomically, it could use a bit of work on the mousepad design. Otherwise, I recommend this lapdesk.

I've used my Logitech Portable Desk for a couple of days now with a 15" MacBook Pro and an old 13" iBook. I hauled it in a backpack to and from work. I've put the mouse tray to task. All in all, I have to say this is by far the best lapdesk I've ever used and at half the price. It's incredibly light and does a great job of keeping the heat off my lap. The surface area is precisely the same size as my MacBook Pro and grips the computer well. There are also non-skid bars on the bottom of the desk that keep it in place.

The mouse tray has a beveled edge that prevents your mouse from slipping off. It's pretty solid for a slide out. Note that if you use the Logitech Portable Lapdesk with a corded mouse, make sure you have a USB port that's not on the same side of the computer you mouse on. There is very little space there and I was forced to use a mouse with a long cable so I could plug it into the other side of my laptop (i.e., I couldn't use my mighty mouse). Most people can get around this with a Bluetooth mouse, unfortunately my employer disables Bluetooth on our company-issued laptops.

Overall this is a great lapdesk that I will recommend to friends and coworkers.

What gets hotter than a volcano and puts out a huge amount of heat? A MacBook G4. So when looking for a "portable stand" for my laptop, I'm definitely looking for something that's the equivalent of a hot pad, light enough to not smash my leg flat, strong enough to withstand being dropped, "sticky" enough to hold a heavy MacBook in place, and durable enough to make it through the trauma of baggage handlers. From the looks of the portable lapdesk, you might be mislead to think it's a flimsy little plastic piece that's about as protective as a wet paper towel. However, after hours of sitting with the MacBook on my lap, I only felt a minimal amount of warmth. If you've ever had a hot laptop on your lap, you can understand the gratitude I felt for the little lapdesk. The coating of the lapdesk holds your laptop securely in place - allowing you to shift your position without losing your laptop. Durability isn't an issue with this lapdesk either. So far, it has withstood being dropped from the lap, knocked off the table (with the MacBook on it) by a hyper dog, tripped over by the non-attentive teen and stepped on by the tween. Amazingly, it shows no wear or cracks. One big plus is it provided extra protection for the laptop in the carry case. All in all it is a great product. Since I have not owned it very long, I didn't think it fair to give it five stars just yet. Bonus: The slide out bar for your mouse is the perfect size if you have an aversion to the "finger pad" like I do.

The Logitech N315 is a great portable lap desk. It holds the my computer securely with it's rubber like top. It's also very portable and I put it in my laptop bag and take it with me on the go. My only problem is that it still generates a lot of heat on my lap. My computer alone would get hot enough where it almost felt like it was burning my legs. This laptop desk helps relieve that, but you'll still get to the point where you need to take it off your lap because it gets too hot. As a note, I have a 15" 2008 MacBook Pro which generates a lot of heat. If you were using a new model, different computer, or a smaller one it may not get as hot. If your computer normally generates a lot of heat, most likely it will work its way right through this over the hours. Even so, it's a great and well built product.

Initially, I loved this lapdesk. It is small, light, portable, very "grippy" and one of the few lapdesks with support for mousing (I start to feel repetitive stress from extended use of a touchpad). There are a number of design elements that could be improved but given the priority put on portability, I consider the product to be an excellent balance of design decisions.

So why the negative review? Simple - it fell apart.

After about a month of daily use, I noticed that the pull-out mouse pad had become loose. Further inspection showed the lapdesk had also become loose at all the corners; I could easily pull the corners up enough to slip a quarter in if desired. Closer examination revealed the reason -- almost all the screws had come loose. Some of the screw heads could even be seen pressing up under the rubber feet. To be more precise, all 8 screws under the rubber strips were loose, some completely dislodged but the 2(?) screws under the central label were still in place.

I liked the product enough to fix it myself. I pulled the rubber strips and reseated all the screws with some threadlocker to insure the screws remained in place permanently. The rubber strips were not as easy. Long, very flexible strips of rubber are not easy to reattach permanently. Craft store rubber cement was not strong enough. Home Depot industrial rubber cement was not quite strong enough. In the end, some automotive glue for rubber molding seems to have done the job. Cleaning the lapdesk of all glue residue after each attempt was the greatest difficulty.

Were the repairs unnecessary, I would have given 4 stars but I expect a product like this to last a lot longer than a month. A few pennies of threadlocker glue applied to the screws at the factory would have made this a great product instead of something that was almost a throwaway.

This rubberized surface laptop desk is designed for those who actually use their notebooks in their laps for extended periods -- no need to consider this for occasional lap use. But for those who sit in airports or lecture halls, it acts as a buffer between your thighs and the heat generated by the computer. Plus, it has an extension for your mouse that slides in and out of the main platform, something that touchpad-haters will especially love. If you want to switch from computer work to paper work, the surface is equally usable for writing.

The rubber surface really grips my laptop so that there's little chance of the computer sliding off. My 13 inch MacBook didn't move until I lifted the desk up to a 45 degree angle. At 17 inches in diameter, the platform fits larger models as well as the more common 15" and 13" sizes. The mouse pad is a more modest 7" h x 6" w. Because the desk is perfectly symmetrical, it can be flipped to accommodate lefties as well as righties. The rounded corners and edges make it extremely comfortable, even when used with a tiny netbook.

To test the desk's durability during writing tasks, I pressed firmly using a fine point gel pen. No marks appeared on the surface, although the light perforation on the surface made it slightly more difficult to write on a single sheet of paper. I couldn't feel the dots through two sheets.

The main reason that I give this four stars instead of five is because the mouse pad feels as though it could easily snap off if you dropped something on it or if you lean heavily on your mouse. Unlike the desk itself which rests on the user's thighs, the mouse pad will extend beyond most people's laps, thereby leaving it with no support. Also, because nothing supports the extension, its use either tips the computer (particularly lightweight ones) or bows the pad slightly down, again depending on the pressure exerted by the user.

Especially for people who have hot-running laptops or who find themselves using their notebook for extended times in areas without table tops, this lapdesk will be appreciated. Generally solid in construction and weighing just over a pound, this makes a great travel companion for those who do a lot of work on the road.

-- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

It looks good at the beginning. Might be due to the high temp, soon the rubber band at the back fall apart. Then the stick down there exposed and cause trouble. I finally remove the rubber band and clean the stick part, then the screws started to loose. 4 of the 8 screws closed to the pullout board missed right now. I am waiting for the day it fall apart. I guess I could still use the face layer.

There's an old saying - if you can only do one thing, you had better do it well. The logitech lapdesk certainly takes this philosophy to heart. It is lacking all the bells and whistles of other devices - no USB hub, no built in ventillation fans, no secret compartments or auxillary power stations. All it has is a stable non-slip platform on which you can use your laptop without suffering from thermal damage to your upper thighs. And sometimes, that's all you want. I feel a little nervous having a set of three small whirling fan blades sitting in my lap while I'm surfing the net in my PJ's.

The extendable mouse pad is functionable. It's about as sturdy as you could expect from something that slides out of a thin lapdesk. Some reviews have complained about the edging of the rim, but I haven't had any problems with it, and it's probably a matter of positioning more than anything else.

So overall, I'm pleased with the job that this lapdesk does of keeping my macbook stable, my mouse coralled and my groin unbaked. It will be my travelling companion for a long time to come, I'm sure.

This lapdesk is very lightweight and fits easily in your laptop bag. What I like the most about it is the surface because it grips to the laptop so that your laptop doesn't slide around when you move. The slide-out tray on the side is a bonus too. It's nice to have a surface for the mouse and it even has grooved edges so the mouse doesn't slide off. It also is good for a writing surface or to hold the tv remote control, coffee, cell phone, whatever. I have about 9 lapdesks and this is the only one I use now.

This lapdesk is an ingenious bit of kit. It's a laptop-sized piece of thin plastic with a slideout tray and a rubberized top surface. Want a pillow? Bring your own pillow, bub. This lapdesk is minimal and provides just the basics: to make sure your laptop doesn't slide around or toast your delicates, and to let you use a mouse.

To those ends, this lapdesk rocks, definitely a five-star product. It's light, highly portable, and makes my laptop perfectly usable pretty much anywhere I've tried it. It's part of my standard setup now. I use it all the time.

So why four stars? Because I have a Macbook Pro, which relies on the bottom not being covered by heat-insulating materials (like, say, a rubberized top surface). The standoffs are very, very subtle, and are made to create a little bit of space when the laptop is on a hard surface. When you're using on your knees with no lapdesk, you leave enough uncovered that it doesn't matter that some of the bottom is on cloth. And on this lapdesk, my Macbook Pro usually runs 5-10deg hotter.

Oh nos, says you! Unhelpful review! Nobody ever said this lapdesk had a fan! But it's not that--it's that my laptop really does run hotter than it does on a table or more traditional model of lapdesk. They don't have fans either, so it's a fair comparison.

Since this lapdesk is a little flexible, a lot of surfaces (my knees, my couch, anything not hard like a table) cause the lapdesk to bow up a little bit because the weight is concentrated at the corners by the standoffs. The bowing makes the rubberized surface touch the bottom of the laptop, and decreases the airspaces around it. This, in turn, defeats the heat-sink bottom; result: laptop runs hotter.

Try slipping paper between your laptop and the lapdesk. If you can't get through without hanging up, that's what's going on. Try supporting the lapdesk at the sides/corners where the standoffs are, and it won't bow. You'll see your temps drop to normal.

So, one star off. If they stiffen this lapdesk up a little for the next rev, it'll be a five star product.