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With the help of Serato and Rane fans, the original Crane Stand became THE laptop stand for DJs to own. Thus a handful of lookalikes appeared on the market that either poorly mimicked the original, or indeed added to the original design without straying too far from the blueprint. Now Crane could have spat their collective dummies out, thrown all their toys from their prams, and generally sulked – and indeed they did for a while as it’s just human nature. But now they’ve dusted themselves off, learned some important lessons, and have come back strong. Behold the Crane Stand Elite – the original just got better.
Being a teaser, albeit more or less giving up everything, I don’t have any further details at this time. So as you might expect, I’ve pulled a few choice frames from the clip to highlight some very useful upgrades:
Height adjustment
This was the biggest benefit of the UDG stand over the Crane. And the Crane Stand Elite has the same stye of height adjustment.
Greater stability
It was possible in extreme circumstances to push the Crane Stand over. That looks to be harder to do with the wider foot.
Hand tightening
The original clamps were cool, but at times could be a pain to operate. Now it seems that hand tightening is the order of the day, but have some flat sides means that you could use a wrench to ensure maximum tightness.
No sharp edges
If you were clumsy or in a rush, the original Crane Stand could gouge holes in your laptop base. The new formed tray has curved edges, meaning those softer edges simply bounce off of your laptop.
Ratchet mechanism
Another issue with the original Crane Stand was that if you put anything heavy on top of it, and hadn’t tightened it properly, it could collapse. The top and bottom ratchet ensures that won’t happen. In fact, you could probably leave the stand less tightened than before.
So Crane is coming back fighting, and swinging hard. I’m not 100% clear if this is all metal, but knowing the Crane guys, this will be over-engineered and fully deserving of the Elite moniker. No word on price or ETA, but I’m sure that info will be available soon enough.
UPDATE
A little Crane shaped bird just said “carbon fibre” to me on Facebook. I’ll just leave that there for you to get excitied about.