Belkin’s Cushtop

I recently had a chance to get hands on with Belkin’s “Cushtop” notebook stand. It’s a wedge-like device made from a sturdy inner material and a soft outer fabric which is designed to hold your computer comfortably in your lap while you work.

Upon first impression, the Cushtop is pretty cool. For one, it’s a heck of a lot more stylish than the other notepad stands I’ve owned. It comes in several colors… among them: grey, green, and orange. The Cushtop held my 15″ MacBook Pro at a comfortable height and angle, and was somewhat pleasant to work on top of. The computer stayed in place and didn’t slide around on top of the stand. Even after several hours, my lap stayed cool.

Unfortunately, that’s about all the nice things I can say about the Cushtop. Let’s start with the obvious. It’s huge. Forget about taking this thing with you when you travel… it would take up half of the space in your rollaboard. I really wish it would deflate or fold up for travel, but alas. The center of the wedge is hollow, the theory being that you can store your accessories (mouse, power brick, etc.) in there. However, I found the open too small to put all but the smallest pocket mouse, and that promptly fell out within minutes. Personally, I find the bright colors obnoxious, but I guess you might like them if you’re prone to misplacing things. Did I mention this thing is huge? If it were a little less rigid, maybe it could double as a pillow or something. Also, the bottom was completely flat. I would have liked it to be contoured somewhat to fit my legs. It didn’t cool down my laptop at all. After an hour, the CPU was the same temperature.

The bottom line is, at an MSRP of $35, you’re probably better off sticking to using a magazine to protect your lap from the excessive heat. It’s thinner, lighter, and gives you something to read after your battery dies inflight.