Let me just start off by saying, I love this thing. “Kyle, then why wasn’t it 9/10?” I’ll get to that later. I got this stand at a perfect time. The night after receiving it, I attended a town hall meeting, and the next day I traveled to a softball tournament to watch a friend. This stand was ideal for those two situations. As the full name suggests, it is also a lap stand. This isn’t your average stand for iPad. The design of it has a contoured shape to fit your leg. That makes it perfect for sitting on your lap when you are somewhere that you don’t have a surface in front of you to set it on. I broke down this review into the following 3 sections: stability, design, and portability.

Stability

Arguably the most important aspect of a stand, stability is first on my list. You wouldn’t want a stand that is always falling over, because then it wouldn’t be very good at its job. The PadPivot, I found, is very stable while both on a desk or table, and while on your lap. The stand is ingeniously designed to support the iPad in a landscape or portrait orientation at maybe a 75ish degree angle with the surface it sitting on when in the “desk mode.” In this position, the “suction” part that usually attaches to the back of the iPad for the “lap mode” is pushed back to act as a support for the device. I found this to hold the device upright very well, and is great for watching videos or reading some news without having to set the iPad on the table or desk.

The “lap mode” of this stand is what I really enjoyed. It is surprisingly sturdy due to a strap that wraps around your leg when using it in this position. The curved design perfectly sits on your leg, and with the “SureGrip NanoSuction” pad, does a great job at holding the iPad on it, with no worry of it slipping off. I used this while sitting in a town hall meeting that had no table in front of me, on the bleachers at a softball tournament (and in that car going there and back), and while relaxing on the couch. In all circumstances, not once did the iPad feel like it would fall off.

Design

The design of this, as stated in previous sections, is great for many uses. One of my favorite uses is the “lap” stand aspect. The bottom, as seen in the picture above, is curved. This allows the stand to set perfect upon your leg while sitting in a chair, in a car, on bleachers, etc. There are many places you could find to use this feature. At first I was worried about the actual stand falling off my leg. Well, that is where the strap comes in. PadPivot provides a strap that wraps around your leg, holding it tight and safe without the need to worry of it slipping off. The strap is even adjustable, because everyone is different. How does the iPad stay on the stand though? Here is where the 9/10 became an 8/10. The stand has what PadPivot calls a “SureGrip NanoSuction” pad on the top of it. The problem is that this can only stick to glossy surfaces. The back of the iPad isn’t glossy. So, the solution it came up with (while smart, just not my preference) is providing a “sticker” of sorts to put on the back of your iPad, allowing the pad to “suction” to it successfully. While I am not a fan of the sticker, it certainly does its job. I was able to pick up the iPad by only holding the stand, and even give it a little shake without the iPad coming loose. I wouldn’t recommend trying that yourself though as it still has the possibility of falling. Another great thing is the “Pivot” part of the name. The stand provides a pivot mechanism under the iPad which allows it to be rotated between portrait and landscape as you see fit. This came in handy when needing to switch to landscape to type in Pages, or, you know, play some Angry Birds to stay occupied.

Portability

Another part of this stand that stood out to me is portability. It is even a selling point of the PadPivot, the ability to fold it up to a size easy to fit in your pocket. I seem to be traveling more and more, so having a stand that not only fits perfectly on my lap, but is also portable, is a complete plus for me. I can see people who fly a lot using this all the time. Just put it in your pocket, take it out when you get on the plane, and it can either sit on the planes foldout desk or you can just put it right on your lap. It’s great. The stand folds up to around 1 1/2 inches wide, and maybe about 1/4 inch thick (see above picture). If that isn’t portable to you, I don’t know what is.

Overall this stand was great. I still have that sticker on my iPad, even though I was hesitant putting it on. PadPivot provides 3 stickers in case you wish to take one off at one point or another. See the gallery below for a few pictures of the stand in action, and head to the link below if you are interested in picking one up. I definitely recommend it.

Buy it here: PadPivot