I’ve been a big fan of Twelve South since it launched its BookArc vertical MacBook holder over a decade ago, but looking back at now, whilst it was useful for thousands of of Mac owners, it was flawed in the sense that you needed different inserts to store different sized Macs, and it was probably larger than it needed to be and that all changes with the new edition, the BookArc Flex.
The purpose of the BookArc Flex is exactly the same as the original product, but it does it in a totally different way. It’s designed to hold you MacBook (or any laptop that is less than 16-inch and less than an inch thick) in vertical mode on your desk so that you can plug it into a display without it taking up too much surface area on your desk.
The all-metal design of the BookArc Flex is absolutely gorgeous with it coming in black, white and chrome. It takes up a lot less space than the original and looks a lot better in my opinion.
The way that it works with any laptop within the allocated specs is with a super clever mechanic that presses in on your laptop when it is placed into the unit, putting exactly the right amount of pressure on your laptop in order to keep it upright. This does mean that you need to place it fairly centre in the holder, but as long as nobody is pulling on the laptop, it should be fine within reason.
I tested the BookArc Flex with my 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro, a 15-inch MacBook Air and even a larger Lenovo Legion laptop that is significantly chunkier and it worked with all three laptops, which has me optimistic that this will be compatible for many years to come.
If you’re somebody like me who uses a laptop 24/7 for work, and takes it into the office, but then wants to plug it in directly to your monitor on your desk when you get home, this is the perfect solution, especially these days with MacBooks only requiring one cord for video, data and power.
The Twelve South BookArc Flex is available for $49.99 for the black or whit eversion or $59.99 for the Chrome version.
