Well, I have to keep the lid open. It is kinda difficult to operate the keyboard with the lid shut.
On some laptops you can remove the screen from the rest of the laptop (you’ll have to take care removing the hinges and wiring from the screen) - in essence just having a ‘chunky keyboard’ with hdmi or vga cable from it going to the external monitor.
Looks a little weird - but certainly nothing wrong with it 😃