Single Motor - Standing Desk Frame

Love it. Just love it.I used to think I'd never want a standing desk. But recently, my lower back has been seriously hurting, and the only thing that seemed to help was standing up while working. I hacked up a makeshift standing desk on my dresser with a bunch of boxes and an old monitor, but moving my laptop back and forth and reconnecting cables was a serious pain.I started looking around for standing desk options, but all of the ones I could find were $500 or more, some WAY more. I'd pretty much resigned myself to being unable to afford a standing desk. I happened to check amazon a few weeks later though, and I saw that this product, which had caught my eye before, had come down significantly in price! I finally bit the bullet and bought one.Setup was super-easy. My 3-year-old was very excited to help me turn the screws! Just a quick note -- the instructions I received didn't indicate how wide I could make the desk frame, so initially I made it too wide. It ended up that the drive shaft wasn't able to reach the non-motor side, so I had to shrink the width just a bit. No big deal. One other wrinkle: no matter how I do it, with the drive shaft extended as far as it can go, I can't make it stay straight with the single set-screw that can engage. Fortunately this doesn't seem to cause any problems and there's plenty of room for the drive shaft to wobble a bit without hitting anything.For the desktop, I got an old hollow-core bedroom door from my neighbor who happened to be throwing two out. I shaved off about a quarter inch from the hinge side to remove the hinge divots. I sanded it to remove the existing (worn, ugly) stain, re-stained it, and applied two coats of wipe-on polyurethane. The end result is a really pretty desktop, and the doorknob hole works quite nicely for routing cables!Mounting to the frame was super-simple, especially since I could raise the desk up to make it easy to get under. Driving screws through the somewhat thin surface of the door was extremely easy and required no pre-drilling, but nevertheless holds the door quite nicely. I attached two power strips to the underside to limit the number of cables that needed to hang off and could snag on things as I raise and lower the desk. I used a staple-gun and twist-ties to route cables tidily. I even mounted a keyboard tray -- again, no pre-drilling, and so far it's held with the included wood screws.Using a door gives me a lot of flexibility, and if something tears out, I'll just use toggle-bolts instead. And if I ruin the desktop? Who cares! It took only a couple of hours to prep it and this kind of door costs just $30 new.The end result is a very spacious, aesthetically pleasing standing desk that easily fits my two 27" monitors plus lots more. I'm 6 feet tall and this desk nicely accommodates me at its full extension.Cons: * The desktop can sway just a tad at full extension. No big deal. I can still lean on it. Despite the sway, the construction feels extremely solid and reliable. * You have to hold the button in while the desk goes up and down. Still no big deal. * Waiting for the desk to go up and down is a bit boring. It takes about 23 seconds to go up and 39 to go down. Really, I can't complain. * No presets. I like it an inch or two above its lowest point. I'll probably just stick a post-it on the wall.Bottom line: the cheapest standing desk I could find, and it doesn't feel cheap in the slightest. I'm extremely happy with it!PS: One more thing: part of the packing material was this nifty half-inch-thick pad of dense foam that makes a perfect standing desk pad, so that's one less purchase I need to make, at least until it falls apart :D

Short story: as most of the other 5-star reviews state, this is a sturdy, well-built desk and a great option to save money if you don't care about a fancy hardwood or metal top. You can throw on a piece of plywood or whatever else you want to use.Long story: I have always wanted a motorized standing desk but all of the models I saw available were very expensive ($1,000 or more) and I didn't want to spend that much. That left me cycling through various cheaper solutions to avoid lower back pain from a desk job (memory foam seat cushion, lumbar support, kneeling chair, and finally a static standing desk I built by slapping some plywood and 2x4's on top of a regular desk). After switching to a static standing desk, I found that standing all day wasn't that much better than sitting all day (even with breaks for walking around and stretching etc). I really wanted a way to easily switch between standing and sitting, but didn't want to spend a ton of money on a motorized desk. I was just starting to look into a hand-crank desk or a home-built system with pulleys and counterweights when I saw this desk and decided to order it.At first I was concerned that quality might be an issue, since at $400 (as of December 2015) this was the cheapest one I could find on Amazon. I read other reviews about standing desks being somewhat rickety or wobbly at standing height (many of them lack cross-supports so you can fit a treadmill under them if desired). However, after using the desk for a few weeks I have no complaints. It was easy to assemble and seems very sturdy at standing height (I'm 5'11"). It doesn't wobble when I type or lean on it. Being able to easily switch between sitting and standing multiple times per day has been great for my back. I just scavenged the laminate desktop from my old computer desktop and used that, so no added cost for the top.My only initial complaint was that the controller does not respond to button presses right away when it has been inactive for a while. It takes a few seconds to "wake up." I assumed this was because of some sort of sleep mode, but contacted Ergo Element's customer support to confirm. They got back to me via email within an hour to say that yes, this was an intended feature but had not been included in their documentation, but would be included in the next iteration of the manual. They even called about an hour later to make sure I got their email. So, while I didn't have any problems with assembly or missing parts, it's reassuring to know that if something does go wrong and I need to contact a live person for a replacement part, that should be easy to do.One final note - the controller for this unit only has up/down arrows. That means you have to stand there and hold the buttons to move the desk up and down. A few slightly more expensive desks have controllers with multiple programmable pre-set heights. I didn't think that feature was worth over $100 so decided to go with this one, but you might want to look at other options if you really want the programmable heights feature.

RAS

The order was vary good, very well a product.

Good

Works as described, best price I could find!

It does what is adertised.