For iMore, I often eat, sleep, and breathe Apple Watch — which often means that I, in turn, do the same with a lot of Apple Watch accessories and stands. I probably have five or six stands in my house right now, but none have captivated my heart like Elago's rubber W3 "Vintage Apple Monitor" stand.
Because c'mon. It turns your Apple Watch into a teensy Mac Plus.
Note: Elago's rubber stand is very similar to RetroConnector's $60 3D-printed plastic Classic Mac stand (opens in new tab), which comes in a few additional colors and can be further customized depending on your preference of Mac (Plus, SE, or SE/30).
If you're any sort of long-term Apple geek and the thought of transforming your 2016 gadget into something from the 1980s doesn't fill your heart with whimsy and delight, well — I pity you and your soul. Because this thing is adorable.
I bought this little guy on a whim after seeing MacRumors post about it last week, not expecting it to be much more than a cheap Amazon gimmick. My expectations were dramatically wrong: The W3 Vintage Mac stand is not only a well-crafted and cute take on an Apple Watch stand, but a pitch-perfect miniature for the Macintosh line of yore.
It's the little details that matter: The charger and cord snap in through the underside of the Vintage Mac stand, sending power to the brick through a tiny little cutout through the rear of the computer; when viewed as a whole, it looks like a proper power cord for the tiny computer. Elago also nails the design: The slot for your Apple Watch is just big enough to slide the watch body into without feeling flimsy or too big, and its surrounding aesthetics (and perfectly-matched off-white coloration) really do make it look like you've just planted a little Macintosh computer on your desk or nightstand.
I realize that perhaps I'm not the majority in wanting a memento of my childhood computing years realized as an Apple Watch stand, but it doesn't matter — this little gizmo makes me happy, and that's more than I can say for most of my other under-$20 Amazon purchases. If it does the same for you, enjoy.
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