Twelve South BookArc Flex reviewed

Dealing with a lack of space is a problem for most desks, but Twelve South’s BookArc Flex helps by lifting your laptop into a vertical position.

With so many of us working from home, the desk has likely become a little busier and more homey than it ever has before.

If you’re as remote as we are, and you spend three or more days working from home still, aside for feeling a happier work-life balance, your desk might be a little crowded from the laptop, keyboard, mouse, and monitor you’re rocking.

Accessories and peripherals to clean it up are becoming more of a normality these days, such as a desk mat which can really help you feel like you’re keeping everything clean, but there are other options.

For instance, there are stands to raise your gadget off the desk.

If you have a tablet, it might be a tablet stand, or if you have a laptop, it could be something more like a laptop or monitor stand, giving you some space back when it’s at a premium.

But there’s also another approach which can see you claim your space back while storing a laptop at a rather unorthodox angle: on its side.

What is the BookArc Flex?

A gadget stand, Twelve South’s BookArc Flex continues the company’s line of BookArc gadgets that are all about holding a laptop up and freeing desktop space.

You only need to glance down at the desk of anyone who works from a laptop to see why this sort of gadget makes sense: a laptop will almost always sit flat, taking up a space of 13 to 17 inches diagonal, which in the end makes a big impression on a desk. It’s like having a thick pad of paper taking up space that could otherwise be used, or even left unused because minimalism and sparseness can make for a happy desk.

It’s why Twelve South has the BookArc range in the first place, allowing you to pick the laptop up and stand it up on its edge, something that if you tried doing by yourself would likely see the laptop fall over and break.

That’s exactly what this gadget aims to solve, with laptops in mind, but really able to work with any gadget that doesn’t need to be there.

What does it do?

Built as a stand, the BookArc Flex is designed to hold a laptop on its side so you can clear some space from your desk.

It’s as simple as that, though you can also use it to do other things, such as hold up other somewhat thin and elongated components you have on your working space, such as a keyboard or two, a tablet, or even a combination of them.

Does it do the job?

Granted, either the laptop, peripherals, tablet, or the combination of all of the above, needs to be thinner than 2.54cm (1 inch), otherwise there just won’t be enough room in the stand to pull it off. That’s plenty of room for most laptops, though older nappies with more thickness may struggle to sit comfortable in this stand.

The BookArc Flex is like a rubber band in a way that it contracts slightly using some rubberised material. However, it doesn’t expand like a rubber band when it’s stretched, so you’ll only get the maximum entry width on offer, not extra room.

It’s designed to hold and slightly grip whatever you’ve loaded, ever so slightly loosely as the case may be. You’ll get a soft hold, but not something so firm that it’s an effort to remove.

The BookArc Flex holds laptops nicely, and may even hold a couple of keyboards at once, too. You probably wouldn’t want a heap of BookArcs on your desk, but you could if needed, and they can help clean up a desk all too easily.

It is mostly for laptops, and clearly focused on Apple laptops at that, but it can handle Windows lappies below an inch in thickness, too.

Is it worth your money?

Priced at $79.95 in Australia, Twelve South’s BookArc Flex is a little on the pricey side for what amounts to a couple of arcs of metal and some rubber holding it together.

It certainly does the job, but it feels like the sort of gadget that should be $50, rather than $80. That might just be us.

Yay or nay?

That said, a gadget stand that can help give your desk some space back going for under $100 isn’t bad at all, and the aluminium design feels well made, too, giving you something for your money.

If you’re someone in need of more space or just more minimalism in your working environment, the Twelve South BookArc Flex is well worth checking out.