Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Bedside Table anyone ?

Why am I now talking of a Bedside Table while reviewing a Laptop Table / Laptop Stand website do you ask ? I think the answer lies in the detail. Isn't it amazing that some product are almost always better known by their generic names - e.g. Bed Table, Bedside Table or maybe Black bedside table, Wooden Bedside Table. Did you ever wonder why ? Its because what may be used as a Bedside table by you, might very well be moved into the garage and be used as a Garage Table by someone else in the house. A table, is a table is a table in the end. 

Or is it ? Well - let me review a product and you can be the judge yourself. If you can visit this Laptop Desk | Overbed Table product page on the Laptop Stand Australia website. What do you see here ? The webmaster is promoting this product as a Laptop Table, but can this also be used as an Overbed Table or a Bedside Table ? Let us inspect. 

A good bedside table has certain few good characteristics. Here are some of them that I can think of: 

1. Good bedside table fits just right between the tiny tiny space between the corner wall and your bed. The usefulness of the table is sort of directly proportional to the reach, by that I mean, you should be able to lie on your bed and without much of a movement, able to access stuff that you've kept on your bedside table without a problem. 

2. Bedside table should ideally come in pairs (that is how they've always been promoted). The twin bedside tables always appear on either side of the bed as a bed accessory and plus, they usually match the overall color and feel of your bed. What does one do if your apartment / home bedroom space is a bit cramped and you don't have enough space for a second bedside table ? Well - go figure ! 

Most folks would stress the above two points as the main characteristics of a good bedside table. I've outlined a couple of more points which stand a good bedside table from the bad one. 

1. Ideally a good bedside table should also be portable, and light-weight
2. If the table comes with lockable wheels so that granny pop and move it around easily too would be great
3. The size of wheels should not be too high - to ensure that the base frame goes under the bed - which enables you to pull your beside table close or away from you. 
4. It should not take eons to assemble. 
5. It should be sturdy - should be able to take a good 30-40 maybe even 50Kgs of weight (going by the number of books and magazines which is going to be sitting up on it for such a long time. 

One such product which comes to my mind is the Laptop Desk, Overbed Table sold by Laptop Stand Australia. This is a perfect bedside table. The table is adjustable, portable, comes with wheels and is thus easy to move around and what more - can be assembled in less than 5 minutes. At $89.99 it is a steal and should be owned by everyone (did I say in pairs) ? 




Logitech introduces new Comfort LapDesk | Lap Tray specially for Macbooks

They say when it rains, it pours. I guess today is just one such day. Just revisited the Laptop Stand Australia website and found out that they've launched yet another new product on their website.

This time, the product which they've introduced is the Logitech Comfort LapDesk. Priced competitively at $74.99 (includes GST), this product is a steal. You can read a good review of the product on the Laptop Ergonomics website. I think they're run by the same folks (or maybe someone affiliated).

I have owned this product myself for quite a while (bought it from an airport store in Taiwan, actually). I just love it and recommend it to everyone I meet. If you're looking for a product which matches your MacBook, both in terms of quality, comfort & design - go for this Lap Tray | Laptop Riser | LapDesk.

New Logitech Laptop Desk & Lap Desk reviews at www.laptopergonomics.net

Readers,

There's a really new interesting post that I came across today on the Laptop Ergonomics web-post website. Its a small but short article on the new Logitech Laptop Desk | Lap Desk now available from Laptop Stand website. I'm just posting a link to the article published here. Please do visit the site and put in your comments.

Regards
Debz

Sunday, 29 May 2011

News from http://www.LaptopStand.com.au/ which I'd like to share

Hello my avid readers. Let me take a bit of a break with product reviews and share some of the news about the recent changes I've noticed in the http://www.LaptopStand.com.au/ website.

1. Renewed Focus on some key product categories: By this I mean that, the website owners have recently changed the menu structures. There are now specific new categories and products have been aligned to fit into each categories. The new categories are:

a. Laptop Tables
b. Laptop Stand
c. Lap Desk
d. Laptop Cooling Stand
e. iPad Stand
f. Book Stand

2. Some new products have also been launched on the 24th of May (this is since my last review). A quick review of the products are as below:

Laptop Chill Pad, Notebook Cooling Chill Pad, Laptop Cooling Stand, Notebook Cooler, Premium Notebook Stand

Portable Book Stand, Adjustable Book Stand, Book Stand, Book Holder, Copy Holder


Premium Book Stand, Cook Book Stand, Big Book Stand, Hardcover Book Stand, Adjustable Book Stand

3. Some news articles and blogs have also been uploaded to the website. The links are pasted below:

1. Ergonomic Laptop Stand | Ergonomic Book Stand | Ergonomic Table 
2. New Products launched on http://www.LaptopStand.com.au/ website
3. Laptop Cooling Stands

Wednesday, 4 May 2011

[Review 4 - Product Review 1] http://www.LaptopStand.com.au/

I'd like to thank all you've actively followed my posts this far. I did take a small break from writing, but I'm back to my passion again. Let us review each of the products on this website on by one.

Product Review 1
Product Name (as described on the website) : Computer Desk, Bedside Table, Laptop Table, Adjustable Table, Laptop Desk

To start with, I'd say hat's off to the website owner / content writer who's taken the road less travelled when it comes to naming the product. More often than not, experts who confirm to traditional wisdom would suggest that each product should have a unique name (ideally not more than a few letters), which can be easily branded and at best containing one or two keywords. This gives the product a single identity, a lot of brand recall and more importantly great positioning in search engines as SEO efforts can be focussed on a single keyword.

Well - the owners / content writers have dared to be different and only time will tell if this ends up confusing customers or results in super cool rating for multiple keywords in various search engines. If you were to ask me - I'd vote in favour of the latter.

Now - lets put some thought as to what enabled the site owners take this unique approach to naming their product? While the real logic resides in the mind of the originator, I'd tend to think that the owners were able to do this because the product they're trying to promote is pretty generic in nature. A table is a table is a table in the end. There can be tables which are adjustable, tables which you can easily move around the house or tables which you can fold away and hide it under the bed, but at the end of the day - its a table. Very few companies have taken the approach of branding a particular table (IKEA has done a good job with this) but most others sell the product - just on the basis of its generic name.

The owners in this particular case, have taken a cheeky route. They've used adjectives intelligently along with the generic product names and have made the end customers believe that they're different products - suited to different uses ! Very nice move indeed.

Now that the science behind naming has been dug up - lets get down to the nitty gritty of reviewing the product. While there are multiple ways in which I can review the actual product, I think the best approach would be to look at its merits for various uses.

a) Hospital Table or Hospital Bed Table or Hospital Tables or Hospital Bed Tables: 
So the big question is - is this product really suited for use in a medical environment as a Hospital Table or Hospital Bed Table ? I'd say with 75-80% confidence that yupp - its good enough. How can I say this ? Its because I've spent time resting in a lot of hospital beds and have used similar products (although a lot more inferior quality). Hospital Tables or Hospital Bed Tables have a couple of main features. Firstly they are adjustable desks, by that I mean that you can increase or decrease the height of the hospital table. Secondly almost all hospital tables come with castors or what we commonly called as wheels - which helps you move the table around very easily across the hospital floor. Lastly, the tray in most hospital tables are large - i.e. they are big enough for you to keep your coffee mug, your laptop and plus leave enough space for the food tray. Hospital table with a small tray top is really not ideal as it becomes more of an inconvenience. And lets not forget, so excellently designed Hospital Tables or Hospital Bed Tables have a special design feature which   allows you to adjust the angle of the tray top. This gives users the added convenience of angling the tray top towards yourself when you're lying flat or semi-flat on the bed. Reading, writing or even using your laptop while lying semi-flat on the bed is a breeze.

As the Hospital Table on this site has all the above features, I'd say it pretty much meets most of the requirements for a Hospital Table or a Hospital Bed Table. If you'd like to purchase one and use it while recovering at home or hospital - please do go ahead.

Now I can see questions coming up. Why did I not give it thumbs up with 100% confidence but instead gave it an 80-90% thumbs up ? Well - the only shortfall could potentially be the limited height this product can be adjusted to. If your hospital bed is really high (sort of a bit higher than what the table can stretch to), then you cannot really get the most out of this product. True, today most hospital beds can be height adjusted - which might solve the problem, but we're not reviewing hospital beds here are we ? We're just reviewing hospital table or hospital bed tables.

So there you go - my final recommendation: This product is good to be used as a Hospital Table or Hospital Bed Table.

Sunday, 10 April 2011

[Review 3 - Website Purpose] http://www.LaptopStand.com.au/

I'm not the website owner, so its going to be a guessing game for me here. I'm basing my hypothesis on the basis of what's out there - not what was originally intended. If you've got a view different to mine - believe me I'm keen to know more.

So here's my two cents worth analysis on what's the website's purpose

Target Audience:
1. Anyone who's got the authority to either buy or influence a sale of advertised products (ideally 15yrs & over)
2. Ideally a laptop / book / ipad or any other novel accessory user (include computers, tablets etc)
3. Enthusiasts, early adopters, gadget fans, definitely a key target as innovative products are on sale

Who are these product's main target buyers:

1. IT professionals, who use laptops, ipads, tablets, computers and other such gadgets
2. General office going consumers, who have to use laptops / computers / ipads at work
3. Work from home professionals who seek comfort with convenience
4. Ergonomic consultants or OH & S professionals, who wanna make sure these gadgets are used properly
5. Moms, Dads, Granny Pops, Granny Moms, Uncle / Aunts - anyone senior who seek comfort in everyday tasks
6. Recovering or ongoing patients, pregnant moms or people with conditions (e.g. back backs)
7. Folks with disabilities, people tied to the bed, people on wheel chairs with limited motion / mobility
8. Lazy folks, who want to indulge and get spoil themselves without the guilt.

Sources of where you can find this website ?

1. Google & Yahoo Search
2. Keyword advertising in Google, Bing & Yahoo
3. Trade Publications / Business Networks
4. Social Media Sites
5. Online Articles / Social bookmarking sites
6. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn pages
7. Trade Shows
8. OH & S consultants, other medical professionals
9. Partner Sites / Network Sites

Easiest way to lookup the website :

The easiest way that I've been able to find out about this website is by simply typing the following keywords in Google or Bing website. These are some of the sample keywords only - I'm sure you can come up with some new keyword which will link to this site.

1. Computer Desk, Bedside Table, Laptop Table, Adjustable Table, Laptop Desk, Ergonomic Table, Laptop Tables
2. Lap Desk, Bed Tray, TV Tray, Laptop Lap Desk, Portable Lap Desk, Laptop Tray, LapDesk
3. Ergonomic Stand, Ergonomic angle adjustable table, Stand for DJ, Display Stand, PC Notebook Stand
4. Bed Table, Foldable Tables, Kids Table, Laptop Stand, Portable Table, Childrens Table
5. Notebook Stand, USB Laptop Stand, Notebook Holder, Notebook Cooler, Desk Laptop Stand
6. ipad Stand, playbook stand, HP slate stand, netbook stand, tablet pc stand, Kindle Stand, Galaxy Tab Stand
7. Desk Stand, Laptop Cooling Pad, Adjustable Laptop Stand, Cooling Pad, Laptop Cooling Stand
8. Book Stand, Book Holder, Cookbook Stand, Copy Holder, Laptop Stand, Document Holder

[Review 2 - Ownership] http://www.LaptopStand.com.au/

So the big question, who owns this website ? Actually it wasn't much difficult to find who the owners were. And this is perhaps what I like about this e-commerce site. The owners actually are not hiding behind the shadows.

My search led me to a website called (http://www.Innven.com/). The promoters (yes promoters) are a young Australian couple in their early 30's. I don't believe this is their first venture, rather they've also worked on similar web initiatives in the past.

You can read more about them at the following link: Innovative Ventures
http://www.Innven.com/

 The Innovative Ventures website claims to be a leading sellers of Laptop Table, Laptop Stand, Notebook Stand, Laptop Cooling Stand, Laptop Desk, Book Stand, Lap Desk & Ergonomic Laptop Stand in Australia