Standing desks have been more and more popular for home & office. How to judge a standing desk, or how to choose a good standing desk, has become a common question we have to know.
Our suggestion is to judge based on different categories which we feel to be the most important things to consider when shopping for a standing desk. Here they are:
1. Warranty
Normally a standing desk will be with us for a long period, thus we think warranty is one of the most important aspects of standing desk.
In the market, warranties of standing desks varied significantly for different brands. There are two specific things to consider when looking at a brand’s warranty. The first is the warranty for the structure of the desk. This includes things like the lifting columns, desktop, frame, feet, etc. The second and more important is for electronics. This includes the control box, switch and motors. The electronics of the standing desk are the biggest concern and the most likely to fail during its lifetime.
Better warranties will start at 5 years. Some warranties were found as long as 10 years. However, it’s important to recognize that just because a warranty is ten years doesn’t mean the product is high quality. Some of low-rated desks have included warranties that were 10 years on the electronics and are known to fail far before that period.
2. Stability
One of the most important aspects of standing desk is the overall stability of the desk when raised to standing position. I think most faced wobbly table at your classroom or bank. When you encounter such table it becomes your number one goal to fix the wobble. While these types of classroom tables can be easily fixed, standing desks are not able to fix wobble problems because of its structure. The only thing we can do is to test its stability when raised to standing position. For online shopping, we suggest you pay attention in below aspects which be related with stability:
A, some standing desks are designed with crossbar, which helps a lot to gain stability, especially to solve wobble problem. However, you can’t have a cake and eat it. The cross bar can’t solve rocking problem, and will raise cost for us. Now more standing desks are without crossbar. You just need to find a balance point.
B, Feet. Better stability with thicker steel board of the feet, more contact area between lifting column and feet, longer feet.
C, Lifting Columns. The gap in tubes. We can use filler gauge to test it.
3. Electronics
When we look at the electronics of the desk, we are focused mainly on the control box itself. The control box is the central computer system that acts as the brain of the desk. While most control boxes will look similar from the outside, with the most obvious difference being size, the quality of each will vary significantly. Opening up the control box, you will find out if something is low or high quality fairly quickly.
One of the first things we look for is if the circuit board system is designed with a single or multiple board setup. Premium manufacturers engineer their boards specifically for use with their own system, which means it is always on a single board system. Lower quality products tend to come with dual board systems, mass-produced for many other applications. These lower quality boards will oftentimes have wires connecting the two boards to each other with poor connections. A closer look at these boards and you will find large components used with poor connections to the circuit board. This poor connection requires the use of large amounts of caulk to hold each of the components in place. The inconsistency with this process is likely due to a low level of quality control and is a major concern for the life cycle of the electronics.
4. Assembly
All of the standing desks that we have met required DIY assembly. Because of this, we felt it was important to include this in our overall score. Depending on your ability, some products will require a lot more work to complete assembly. If you don’t feel comfortable assembling many parts, these products are likely best to avoid. The amount of time required for the desks we reviewed varied from 30 minutes up to a few hours. It’s important to note that how long it will take you is solely dependent on your abilities and the tools used. We recommend using a cordless drill to speed up the assembly process. If you rely on the tools that are provided by each brand you will be left assembling your desk with small allen wrenches that can oftentimes be very time consuming to use.
5. Weight Loading Capacity
The weight capacity testing seems like it should be a fairly straightforward process. The only problem is that just because a manufacturer labels a product with a capacity, doesn’t mean it can actually lift that much or can do it with any consistency. Our testing will verify first that a product is able to lift the advertised load. Next, we check to see how different weights impact the desks overall adjustment speed. Some products we have tested advertise weights that are significantly more than the actual OEM recommends. While the desks may lift that amount of weight, the actual manufacturer who has done extensive testing would not recommend the same max load. When considering the efficiency of your desk, using it beyond a manufacturer’s recommended capacity can shorten the desks life cycle.
It’s also important to note that just because a brand may advertise a high weight capacity doesn’t mean they are more stable. Through testing 20 adjustable standing desks I can tell you there is zero links between capacity and stability. The truth is that a lot of the desks we tested that have some of the highest weight capacities were the least stable when raised into standing position.
6. Adjustment Range
Understanding the adjustment range and how it can impact you is an important part of the buying process. The typical range of motion for adjustable standing desks that we have tested varies from 17” up to 27”. While a 10” difference might not seem like a lot, it can make or break the ergonomics of your set up. If you are below 5’5” you will likely need to incorporate an adjustable keyboard tray to your set up to get the desk low enough to sit comfortably. Users that are taller than 6’5” will need to look at desks that rise beyond 47” for proper standing ergonomics. Using our standing desk height calculator is a good place to start. If a desk will not go high enough for your specific needs it could likely be a deal-breaker.
