Roughly two and a half years have passed since we first tested Power Support’s Docking Stand for MacBooks, a neat little padded aluminum accessory that holds a MacBook upright for use with a monitor. In the time that’s passed, we’ve looked at quite a few other MacBook holders, but none has struck us as a complete alternative to the Power Support design until now. And even so, what just arrived isn’t necessarily superior—especially given its price—but some people may really like it.
Just Mobile calls it Mtable, and at $80, it sells for twice the price of the Power Support Docking Stand—a premium that we’re not totally enthusiastic about. It is an Apple-quality piece of aluminum, forged into a metal monitor stand, with rubber pads on its bottom to avoid scratching the surface below. The idea is that you put your monitor on top of it, your MacBook below it, and turn the monitor’s footprint into a more effective use of space. Mtable is also pitched as an organizer for the Mac mini, though for that machine it does nothing more than place the monitor and Mac mini next to each other as they would be on any table, letting you conceivably store your keyboard or other items below it. Other items might make sense; rare is the table surface that’s already at the correct wrist-friendly height for a keyboard.
What we like about Mtable: port and SuperDrive access is easy with the holes cut in its sides, and Wi-Fi doesn’t appear to be affected by all the metal, thanks in part to a breathable pattern of dot-shaped holes in its back. A 13” system fits in without any issue; a 15” should do the same, but a 17” would be a non-starter. That said, the question of whether we’d really want to slide the MacBook into the front bottom every day is separate, and one that we’re in the process of testing right now; our typically cluttered desk wouldn’t necessarily make this as easy as we’d prefer. In any case, Mtable is a nice-looking option, and one that will work for sure for some users—we’ll update this article when we know which camp we’re in.