World of Apple

I noticed the Macessity LowKey on PicoCool recently and was stunned. The product photos showed an elegant solution to a pair of major problems: the lack of a good place to slide my iMac’s keyboard when not in use and the difficult placement of the high-use USB ports on the back. What a great idea! What grace in the execution! Could it be true? It almost is. Almost.

First, the unboxing:

Doing its duty:

The LowKey’s mission is to hold up the iMac, provide easy access to USB ports, and provide a nice spot to stow the keyboard for extra desk space. It does a fine job of all of these things. Here’s a photo of my desk before the LowKey arrived:

After some cleaning:

And finally after the installation of the LowKey:

Flick approves of the great increase in desk real estate:

Going the extra mile

Certainly the LowKey does what it was intended to do, but there is a lot of room for improvement. A number of the stylistic touches I had counted on were missing. The features that would bring the LowKey to the upper echelon of iMac-uppers just weren’t there.

I had originally believed that the LowKey would perfectly match the iMac. In fact, the LowKey is painted metal, not the evenly powder-coated finish of the iMac and its keyboard. That’s pretty important in my opinion. This is my biggest issue with the LowKey.

The remainder of my issues with the LowKey could be attributed to “snobby pickiness” or “high standards” depending on who you’re talking to. I’ll put them as “suggestions for the next model.”

The USB hub doesn’t have an option to use a second USB cable for alternative power. This requires you to have an AC outlet for the stand if you want to really use those ports.

The USB plugs don’t sit flush with the ports.

There’s no room for the mouse when the keyboard is underneath. This is a tricky one to solve because the flow of the stand’s style would be lost if you made room for it, but it’s something to think about.

The rubber feet, while preventing scratching the desk, aren’t as neat as they could be. I’d like to see a foot underneath the edge without creeping up the sides of the stand.

Finally, we come to the support post on the underside of the stand. The post does prevent the stand from sagging at all, which is wonderful, but this guy still has a couple issues. Firstly, the keyboard levers around the post when you try to pull it out by the mouse cord. Not such a big deal.

The trouble I have with it is that the little rubber cap that keeps it from scratching the desk comes off too easily. It popped off immediately when I took the stand out of the box. This isn’t a problem if you’re leaving the computer in the same place all the time, but if you move and that cap gets lost, you could very easily scrape your poor desk to death.

Should you buy this?

If you need a stand, and $60 doesn’t sound too bad to you, go for it. Your Mac is safe on top of the LowKey. In fact, both of my parents have tried to swindle me out of this one.

If you’re concerned about style, or you just thought “what? $60?” don’t buy it. Instead, wait for a revision. This is a promising product, but it isn’t quite there yet.

Final Notes

I’ve now been using the LowKey stand for about a month, during which time I moved my desk. I didn’t have the cables handy to plug in the USB hub, so now that’s useless due to my own laziness. I’ve only really used the keyboard hiding function once, and I had to move all the junk on my desk out of the way to do so, but I was happy the LowKey was there when I needed it. Lastly, through turning my iMac to view the screen from other parts of the room, I’ve completely scratched up the paint job. There are large scratch rings on the top of the LowKey now. Thankfully the iMac’s foot stands right on top of them, so the scratches aren’t glaringly obvious.

Despite these new developments, I stand by my review of this product.