Tablet Stand for Bed,360 Degree Rotating Bed Tablet Mount Holder Stand with Aluminum Arm for iPad,iPhoneXS,N-Switch, Amazon Kindle Fire,or Other 4.7~12.9 inch-Screen Devices

I decided to write this review because this item, despite the bad reviews people left, has been a life saver.Here's the story, I have a friend who due to medical reasons has to lay flat for an extended period of time. I mean extended as in 2 months or more.After a few days of staring at the ceiling he was losing his marbles. So I decided to find something to help him keep his mind occupied.Although this item didn't have a lot of good reviews and was marked by Amazon as "Frequently returned", I decided to give it a shot for the $20 price.I also bought one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9M5SCG4 to connect to his PC.The two holders are used to hold the display and an iPad mini (about 9 inches)These two holders have worked flawlessly. Strong enough to hold that display or the iPad. He is able to adjust the position to make sure his neck doesn't get tired in one spot.Also, the arms can swivel out of the way for getting up or laying back down.Honestly, I don't know why people call these flimsy.I wanted to write this review to make sure people see these as usable and affordable. Not everyone is looking to watch instagram in bed. Some people have a medical need.Hopefully this review helps other in similar position.

Let's start with some basics so you understand if this review is for you or not.I use an iPad Pro 12.9", and I use it mostly for reading technical material. So any sort of "holder" that I utilize has to support that level of weight, and has to support the iPad in portrait mode.Out the box this is a mediocre stand, just like others I have tried. For example the gooseneck stands can't really support the weight of the largest iPad and are a hassle to maneuver into place every time you use them.So how did I convert mediocre to perfection? Look at the photos!The first step (thank you some other reviewer who gave me the idea!) is to deal with the iPad mounting. The mounting that's supplied by the manufacturer is a pain in the ass to use, requiring an effort to slide the iPad in and pull it out on every use. Solution is to get a magnetic mount. Amazon is kinda weird about including URLs, but look for "ORASANT Strong Magnetic Tripod Mount". That supplies the "head" that's at the very end of my setup, holding the iPad. How do you connect it?Well look at how the mount connects to the arm that you have just bought. At the very end, the mount that holds the iPad, has a little neck, a screw ring, and a holder that holds a mini-ball-head thats connected to the final metal rod you see just before the iPad. You unscrew that ring and can pop the mount off the ball head. A similar setup connects the magnetic part of the ORASANT mount to the plastic holder that it sits on. And (yay standards!) they are identically sized ball heads. So just swap the one for the other!If you look at my second photo, the focal point of the photo, the black magnetic mount in the lower third of the picture, is the ORASANT mount connected to the rest of the arm that you've bought. At the very end you see the three-fold magnetic head, then right behind the head you see a black ring. Unscrew that ring and you have the ball-head that connects to the rest of the arm.Step two is your need your iPad to hold onto the magnetic mount, meaning you need to attach some thin iron sheets to its back, as you can see in the photo. I attached two "sections" of iron sheet, the upper section is for holding the iPad in portrait mode, the lower section is better for holding it in landscape mode. Since I use a Smart Folio as my iPad cover, it's very easy to pull the Folio off the iPad (it's connected by magnetism around the edge of the iPad Pro) and pop the iPad onto the magnetic mount, then to pull the iPad off the mount and pop its cover back on.You will obviously think this so, yes, I tried some obvious short cuts! Is the magnetism around the iPad edges (used by the Smart Folio or the Magic Keyboard) strong enough to hold it up if you bought maybe a cheaper mount with just an iron based? IMHO that's unsatisfactory because you can't really position the iPad nicely with it hanging by its edge. Just buy the magnetic mount, it's not expensive!Can you stick the iPad to the mount with its Smart Folio on? Not very satisfactorily! You can kinda just get it to work, but the magnetic strength through the additional thickness of the case is weak enough that the slightest wrong touch makes it fall off. But without the case the connection is very satisfactory and does not feel at all fragile. You can find the sorts of thin iron plates you need by doing a search for "Metal Plates for Magnetic Car Mount".OK, at this stage we now have a great connection from our iPad to this mounting arm. What's the next step?You will see photos showing various mounting options (and to be fair, the vice clamp that the arm comes with is pretty damn well designed, very flexible and capable of clamping onto a lot of different things. But I found that all the obvious options I tried (variants of nightstand on the side, or behind the headboard) were all unsatisfactory. The nightstand angles were always wrong, and clamped to the headboard the iPad was a few inches too close to my eyes for comfortable reading. This may not matter to you depending on your eyes, or whether you are watching movies lying down, rather than reading while somewhat vertical. But to me it made the product so close but still useless :-(Hence the last stage. You'll see I mounted a bracket on the wall that projects about ten inches over the bed, then I clamped the arm onto the end of that bracket. (This was just a bracket I had lying around, I'm afraid you will have to look for something similar in your garage or at Home Depot.) It's obviously not QUITE ideal -- you can (and I do) swing the arm all the way around to against the wall when it's not in use, but you still have that bracket sticking out ten inches, and if you share a bed that may be problematic. But for my use of the bed I have not found it to be a problem, mounting it as I did towards one side of the bed (not the middle). In the last photo you see the arm rotated away against the wall.The payoff for all this (about $50 in parts and half an hour with a stud finder and a drill) is a system that feels astonishingly good. The arm is robust and stiff, the iPad sits still where it should, and it's very easy to position the iPad exactly where I want it so that I can read for a long time without getting tired.

I like it because I can adjust my iPad straight up and down, leaning, etc without the black bar getting in the way. I have ordered one that kept it at a lean, I think a phone would work better. I lay in bed reading and my hands frequently have numbness and tingling from pinched nerves. Trying to keep a holder on my chest from popping me in the face or sliding around got ridiculous if I couldn’t keep a hold of.The problem: for me it somehow starts flopping forward no matter what I do after a couple of months. I admit I am constantly adjusting it this way or that, side to side, up and down, so I probably help it along. I’ve tried taking apart, putting back together, loosening, tightening, nothing helps. I take a thick rubber band and attach to the top of the holder and up around the bar. This gets me a few more weeks.The solution: I just buy a new one about every 3 months. Some may not can afford to. Some are just ticked it does this or whatever. Maybe it should last me but it doesn’t. I can’t go back to trying to put in a holder on my chest laying in bed, or looking down if I’m sitting. Here is how I justify it to myself. We spend $20 these days for fast food for the 2 of us if I don’t use reward points or offers on apps. Way more at a sit down restaurant. We do one or the other at least once a week. So, that fast food doesn’t last an hour, but this at same price will last me 3 months! My logic. It also helps I live in Louisiana and my husband loves crawfish, I don’t. So during season, he spends an average of $25 for just him some each week through the season. Now that’s some Tracey logic/reasoning to splurge here and there, lol.

So far, so good. Just received these on the second. For me, it was easy to assemble. The option for the stand to be in two positions, either attached to desk or headboard, is neat. I looked over the entirety of the product and didnt see any broken plastic or metal. I'll update my review should anything change.