How can I secure a Retina MacBook Pro to a desk? (similar to how the older MacBook Pro could use a Kensington Lock)

I work for a company renting office space from a downtown skyscraper. In order to deter casual theft from building employees and cleaning staff my company prefers we secure our laptops to our desks using Kensington locks. With the last MacBook Pro (the 13" one with the slot-loading optical drive) this was no problem, as it had the slot for the lock.

And then I asked for (and got) a recent MacBook Pro with Retina. One of the things none of us really thought about was its lack of a slot for the lock.

So I've investigated the options and none of them are really confidence inspiring.

The prevailing logic is to buy this thing from MacLocks. However, it has very mixed reviews, it requires grafting something onto your rMBP (which, for what its worth, I don't care about for cosmetic reasons, but rather the idea of having to screw something onto the bottom of the thing is a little unnerving), it has very mixed reviews, the website itself looks shady (the JavaScript bot pretending to be a human asking me if I need help is bothersome), and it's sort of expensive ($70) considering all of the above.

Most of the other options I see are no longer on the market (either for lack of sales or effectiveness, I assume) or are precluded on the idea of things like alarms going off should they be removed (which is going to be pointless if the casual theft were to occur after hours). One solution was a "locking case" which reportedly had overheating issues.

As it stands now I'm just tossing the thing in a drawer at the end of the night and locking the drawer which is a pain and doesn't allow me to let tasks like app submission go on so I can leave for the day, but it's potentially the only real option other than MacLocks.

So what other options are there for locking a rMBP to a desk? Has anyone here tried the MacLocks solution? Or is the rMBP mostly a "take home at the end of the day or don't worry about it" device for most people? I'm not taking mine home because I have my own rMBP in my backpack and the nature of what I'm currently doing precludes me from working from home anyway.

For what it's worth I did see this question but it's for a MBA, it's four years old, and the accepted solution (loud noise when the adapter is removed) isn't going to work for me as I mentioned above)

Solution 1:

I know SE is not a place for product recommendations, but this Henge Dock sounds like something that might be useful to you.

The dock hugs the MacBook Pro from both sides (inserting a plug into all the available ports), and has a Kensington lock port on the back.

I do not own this product but I have been considering it.

Solution 2:

Why not connect a display or cheap display simulator and keyboard to let your Mac run in closed clamshell mode.

You can then just get any acceptable locking mesh or physical barrier you chose. Even letting it run in the locked desk is viable and if you were really lazy (like I am), you could run a second power adapter into the drawer.

Any handy fabricator could make steel or aluminum box or grates you could bolt onto the desk where convenient. A nice solid padlock would be far more secure than anything that emulates a small Kensington slot.

The MacLocks bracket is quite elegant IMO and uses the screws that secure the bottom case to secure the locking shim to the MacBook frame. There is nothing shady there and it's better than a Kensington slot which seems to meet your business expectations for adequate protection.

If you save 5 minutes each work day, it's hard to see $70 being expensive unless your hourly rate is minimum wage.