LAPGEAR Home Office Lap Desk Review: A Tray for the Recliner

For about three months I read the Gaston Gazette with my chin tucked down toward my chest. The tablet sat propped on my knees while I leaned back in my lift chair, and by two in the afternoon my neck was stiff enough that I would set the whole thing down and stare at the television instead. Not because I wanted to watch whatever was on. Because holding a tablet up at eye level is work, and I was tired of doing it.

I had a metal folding TV tray beside that chair for years, and I want to be fair to it. It holds a plate. It holds a coffee cup. What it does not do is come to me. It sits out there at arm's length, so I lean forward and reach to read, which is the exact motion I was trying to stop doing in the first place. In May I ordered the LapGear Home Office Lap Desk, and I have used it every single day since. Mostly with a tablet, a crossword book, and a stack of birthday cards I keep meaning to finish.

How I've Used It

It is November as I write this, so the lap desk has been in the house since May. Six months, used every day. It lives on my lap in the MCombo lift recliner by the front window, the chair I bought back in February. My husband Walt sits on the couch with his own coffee and his own opinions about the volume on the TV. The lap desk is mine and it stays with my chair.

The cushions underneath rest on my thighs and the front edge sits a couple of inches past my knees. Because the whole thing comes to me, I can sit all the way back the way the chair was built for me to sit, and the tablet is up where I can read it without tucking my chin. That sounds like a small thing. It is not a small thing when you do it four hours a day.

Mornings are the tablet and the newspaper, coffee on the side table, the lap desk across my knees. Afternoons are the crossword, which takes more flat space than you would think because I write large and I write in pen. Evenings I answer letters or sign cards. I do not own a laptop. I have never used it for work of any kind, and the name on the listing gives me a small chuckle every time I look at it.

One thing I did not expect is how it handles a video call. Karen calls from Belmont on Sunday afternoons, and I set the tablet against the raised ledge and the camera sits up at my face instead of looking up my nose from my knees. She says I look less like I am talking to the ceiling now. That is not why I bought it, but it is one of the reasons I would buy it again.

What the Surface Actually Holds

The listing says 21.1 inches wide and 12 inches deep, and the surface is meant to fit laptops up to 15.6 inches. Before I ordered, I measured my tablet and my crossword book against a tape measure on the kitchen table, because I measure twice on everything and I have never once regretted it. My tablet is nowhere near 15.6 inches. The crossword book is about 8 by 11. Both fit with room left over for a coffee cup if I set it down carefully.

The front edge has a built-in device ledge, a raised lip that stops a tablet from sliding off when the chair is reclined. That lip is the reason I bought this one instead of a flat board. Without a lip, a tablet creeps toward your stomach the moment you lean back. With the lip, the tablet stays where I put it while I read with one hand and drink coffee with the other. I tested that on my own lap for six months and I am confident about it.

There is a 5 by 9 inch mouse pad worked into the surface and a slot that holds a phone upright. I will be honest with you. I have never used either one. I do not use a mouse because I do not have a computer, and my phone lives in the caddy hanging on the right arm of my chair. The slot is there. It is not in my way. I just cannot tell you it changed my life.

The Cushions Are the Whole Thing

The whole desk weighs 2.1 pounds, light enough that I lift it with one hand. Underneath there are two bolster cushions, one toward each knee, and they are what makes this different from a board laid across your legs. The cushions let it sit level across my lap instead of tipping toward the middle. They also mean the hard surface is not resting directly on my knees, which matters to me because my knees are stiff in the morning and tired by evening.

Six months in, the cushions have not flattened. I expected they would. I sit on this thing every afternoon and I am not a small woman at five foot four and about a hundred and sixty five pounds. The stitching is still tight and the fabric still has some give to it. The matte surface has not scratched, even though I slide the tablet across it a hundred times a day and set my pen down on it without thinking.

The other thing I noticed is that it does not walk. Some trays creep their way off your lap over the course of an hour and you find yourself grabbing at them. The LapGear stays where I put it, partly because the cushions grip the fabric of my slacks and partly because the thing is wide enough that it is not fighting for balance.

There is no upkeep to speak of. There is no fabric cover to wash and nothing to take apart. When it collects dust I wipe it with the same damp cloth I use on the end tables and that is the whole routine. I have owned enough things that needed fussing over. This is not one of them.

The One Change I Had to Make

The MCombo is a lift chair. When I press the button, the chair tips me forward and up until I am standing. A lap desk on your lap during that is a bad idea, and I figured it out the first time I tried it. Now the lap desk goes on the floor beside the chair before I press anything. It takes one second. I set it down, I stand, and when I sit back down I pick it up again.

That is my own rule, not something the manufacturer told me, and I would give the same advice to anybody with a lift chair. The tray and the lift do not work at the same time. The other thing I had to learn is that when the footrest is all the way up and I am fully reclined, the lap desk stops being useful. It sits at an angle and everything on it slides. Fully reclined is for napping, and I am not doing a crossword with my eyes closed.

There is a 90 day workmanship warranty on it. I have not needed it. Nothing has come apart, no cushion has split, no corner has worn through. Six months of daily use and it looks about the way it did the week it arrived.

How It Compares to the TV Tray I Still Own

The folding metal TV tray is still in the hall closet. I did not throw it out, because it earns its keep at Thanksgiving. But it has not been beside my chair since May. The differences are simple. The TV tray stands on the floor and I have to reach it. The lap desk sits on me. The TV tray top is lower than my chest when I am reclined, so I am still looking down. The lap desk rides at my lap, higher than the tray, and it moves with the chair when the back goes down.

The one place the TV tray wins is a plate. I would not set a plate of Sunday dinner on the lap desk and neither should you. It is flat but it is not a table, and the cushions mean it tips a little if you lean hard to one side. Soup is out. A sandwich on a paper napkin is fine.

What I'd Change

The surface is 21.1 inches wide and my lap is not. When I am sitting in the chair the desk sticks out past my hips on both sides, and if Walt walks past behind the chair he catches his hip on the corner. I would rather have three inches less and a handle on one end. There is no handle, so I carry it flat with two hands when I move it, which is awkward when I am also carrying coffee.

The phone slot is the feature I would trade. On a desk this wide, my phone sits up at an angle about ten inches from my hand, and I have knocked it out of the slot twice while reaching for my cup. The phone stays in my pocket now, or in the caddy on the armrest. If you are somebody who watches a phone propped up while you do something else, the slot may suit you better than it suits me.

And the last complaint is small. The oak woodgrain finish shows a coffee ring if you set a mug down without a coaster. I learned that in the first week. I keep a coaster in the caddy now and the ring came up with a damp cloth, so no harm done, but it is not a surface that forgives you.

The lip at the front edge is the whole reason I bought this one. Without it, a tablet creeps toward your stomach the moment you lean back.

Who This Is For

This is for somebody who spends real time in a recliner with something flat in front of them. A tablet, a book, a crossword, correspondence. If the chair is where you read, and the reading is currently happening on your knees or out on a TV tray at arm's length, this puts the page where your eyes already are. It suits a lift chair owner as long as you are willing to set it down before you stand. It would also suit a couch or a plain recliner with no mechanism at all, and honestly it would be easier there, because there is nothing to remember.

It is also a sensible thing for a grown son or daughter to hand a parent who will not ask for help. It does not look like equipment. It looks like a tray. That matters more than people admit.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if you are looking for something with legs. This is not a bed tray and it is not a TV tray. It sits on you, and if you cannot have weight across your lap for any reason, this is the wrong shape of thing entirely. Ask your doctor, or a physical or occupational therapist, about that before you buy anything meant to rest on your lap, especially if you are getting over a surgery or a fall. I am not a nurse and I am not a therapist. I am a retired church office worker who reads a lot and measures twice.

Skip it too if you work on a laptop with a mouse all day. The surface handles a laptop fine, but a lap desk in a reclining chair is not a desk. There is no room for a second screen, the angle shifts when you recline, and the mouse pad is 5 by 9 inches. For a tablet and a book it is exactly right. For a home office, I would want a table.

One more thing and then I will let you go. If you are the daughter or the son reading this on behalf of a parent, this is the kind of purchase that gets used without anybody making a fuss about it. My Karen did not buy mine. I bought it myself on Amazon, the same as the chair and the caddy and the pillow, and I have not regretted a penny of it. If she had bought it for me, I would have said thank you and meant it, which is more than I can say for the blender she gave me in 2019.