Most laptop stands exist in one of two price brackets: sub-$30 folding aluminum that wobbles the moment you touch the keyboard, or $150+ machined blocks that treat holding a computer six inches off a desk like an act of industrial design genius. Twelve South’s HiRise Pro - sitting around $80 depending on where you buy it - is supposed to split the difference. After using it for several weeks, I think it mostly succeeds, but for reasons that expose how low the bar in this category actually is.
The build quality is genuinely good. The column is solid metal, the height adjustment clicks into position without creaking, and the silicone pads grip without leaving marks on an M3 MacBook Pro chassis. It doesn’t wobble. That’s the baseline, and a surprising number of competitors fail it.
What’s less convincing is the adjustment range. The HiRise Pro raises your screen to a comfortable eye-level height for sitting - fine. But drop it to its lowest setting and it’s barely elevated at all, which makes it awkward in standing desk configurations unless your desk is already quite high. This feels like a design decision made for one specific use case: someone sitting at a fixed-height desk, probably in an office, probably with a monitor at eye level and an external keyboard below. Which is a valid setup, but not the only one.
The cable management is also almost entirely cosmetic. There’s a small clip on the back that holds one cable loosely. One.
The Actual Problem
What bothers me about the HiRise Pro isn’t its shortcomings specifically - it’s that it charges a premium price while making the same compromises as cheaper alternatives, just with better materials. You’re paying for the metal construction and the brand, not for any meaningful rethinking of how a stand should work.
The Lululook Foldable Stand, at roughly half the price, has nearly identical height range and similarly solid construction. The difference is mostly aesthetic. Meanwhile, Majextand’s flat-folding design - genuinely clever, built into the bottom of your laptop - shows there’s still room for actual innovation here.
If you already own a Twelve South product and want visual consistency on your desk, the HiRise Pro makes sense. Otherwise, the category needs something smarter, not something shinier.