Thinking about getting a Varidesk Pro 60 Electric Standing Desk? We’ve got you covered with a two-part review. We’ll cover the setup and first impressions with this post, and then after we have a few months of every day use with this desk, we’ll share our final verdict.
This is a Hefty Desk
This is not a light weight desk. The 60 in the title stands for the length of the desk, 60″. The width is 30″. The desk ships in two large boxes. The desktop comes in one box and is about 100 pounds. The legs and parts come in another and weighs around 75 pounds. Below is a picture of the boxes in the back of my Mitsubishi 7 seat SUV with the second and third-row seats folded flat. It barely fit.
If you have a hand truck, you can potentially move the boxes around by yourself. I hauled the boxes from one location to another without any help. Ideally, though you want to have two people to move these boxes, especially if you have stairs.
Excellent Packing, Easy to Follow Assembly Instructions
As we expected, Varidesk packs these desks to travel well. We are in Hawaii and had no problems or shipping damage whatsoever. You would be amazed at how many things get broken as they get shipped to Hawaii. If it can get to Hawaii in one piece, it can get shipped anywhere. The desk shipped via a private courier and not via one of the major shippers like UPS, FedEx, or USPS. This is probably not a big deal except if you need to return the desk, you may need to coordinate with a smaller shipping company which may have less flexible pickup options.
Just by unpacking the desk you can clearly see Varidesk’s standing desk experience. After all, they have dozens of patents around standing desks. This desk is packed logically and was incredibly easy to unpack. The instructions are clear and show great care in creating a simple process that works for most people. I’ve had my share of ready-to-assembly furniture that was missing parts, had unclear instructions, tiny print, and parts that just don’t fit well enough together. A+ to Varidesk for the installation process. Notice in the picture below that they use relatively little packing plastic!
According to Varidesk, you should be able to install this desk in five minutes without special or complicated tools. The instruction manual is easy to read, the illustrations use highlighted graphics that clearly show each step, and they even include useful accessories including velcro cord keepers and two hooks for bags that slide on to the desktop.
The last two desks we put together took us about 40 minutes each, so the five-minute target seemed a bit aggressive. We reviewed the setup instruction beforehand and five minutes seemed plausible. You really are just connecting the two legs to the desktop and then installing the stabilization bar. By reading the instructions and just peeking at the parts, we could easily see how the desk fit together. The desktop is marked with white stickers for the left and right legs. The legs slide into the four notches in the frame and are secured with four screws. Easy! But we had one problem…
Our 45 Minute Setup
It took us a total of 45 minutes to put the desk together. We had two challenges going for us. One, we tapped a friend that had never put one together before so that may have accounted for some extra time. And more importantly two, we had to re-tap the threads for the back bolts. The supplied screws would not fit. It could be that the screws we got were not correct, or we made a mistake during the installation process. The instructions were clear so we are leaning towards the wrong screws. We didn’t call Varidesk support through our interactions with them lead us to believe this would have been taking care of immediately on the first call. Re-tapping was not a big deal so we opted for that versus getting replacement screws sent.
Here you can see two screws that hold each leg assembly to the desktop. If these screws fit correctly, it would have taken us less than 30 minutes to drive up with the boxes, move them, unpack them, set up the desk, and take care of the trash. Accounting for just the desk setup, we think about 10-15 minutes is an ideal amount of time to budget.
The rest of the install was a breeze. With the desktop upside down, the leg and motor assemblies simply dropped right into place. That part was nice and smooth. The desk parts are designed to easily fit really well together.
We did like the built-in cord management. We have other standing desks with cords all over the place. The Varidesk has a clever cord management solution. The cords slide into an area on the underside of the desk that uses spring loaded ball bearing to hold the cords into place. You can see this cord manager in the picture above (along with one of the bag hooks in use).
First Impressions on the Look and Feel
We got the reclaimed wood top and it looks amazing and really does feel extremely durable! In case you were wondering, it is faux reclaimed wood but you would only notice the faux part if you got up really close. From a distance, it sure looks like someone chopped up old barns to make desks. In our opinion, this was the most striking option. You can also get this desk in black, white, butcher block and dark wood.
Here is a close-up view of the wood top.
As you can see from the picture below, the desk has chamfered edges, which is a fancy word for a symmetrical sloping edge. This edge doesn’t make the desk more functional but it one of the subtle design hints that make it obvious this is not an entry-level desk.
The crossbar may be a visual issue for a some. If we had the option, we would select a crossbar every single time. After all, you need to work on a stable surface. If the crossbar bothers you visually, there are other models from other vendors that don’t come with one. If you notice in the picture above, the crossbar is pushed back enough that it won’t be an issue using the desk sitting on a desk chair.
First Impressions on Using the Desk
We were surprised just how low the desk dropped at the lowest setting. If you have young children, this desk could even work for them. Here is what the desk looks like at the lowest setting.
At the highest setting, you have more than enough room to put a treadmill and still have the height at an ideal level. The desk moves from in continuous height adjustments from 25.5″ (64.5 cm) to 50.5″ high (128 cm). You can toggle the display to show height in either inches or centimeters. Here’s the desk at the highest setting.
The height interface adjustment is easy to use. Press up for up, down for down. You can also store three settings. Over the years, I have found that three is the perfect number of presets. I use one for sitting, one for standing, and one for kneeling on my chair. Am guessing not that many people follow me for my third memorized setting. The desk movement, as we expected, is extremely smooth, fast, and quiet. You are not going to bother people in an office at least not audibly when you transition from one height to another. If you want to limit the top or bottom range, there are also the bottom and top lockouts.
The desk is very heavy, sturdy and solid and as a result, does not have a lot of movement when typing or performing other tasks. The desk is rated to hold 250 pounds. Having two large monitors and a laptop would only weigh about 50 pounds so this desk has a ton of lifting capacity.
Here’s a shot of the desk setup with a lamp. Notice that with the cord management system, all you see if the one cord. You can also hide that cord better using the included velcro straps.
Summary
If you want one, make sure you have a friend ready to help you move it and set it up. It’s solid and heavy, in a very good way! If you have never assembled a desk like this before, I would budget 20 minutes. It’s ridiculously easy to setup but you don’t want to rush it and strip a screw or mess something up. The desk looks well made, feels well made (stay tuned for our future long-term review), and operates exceptionally smoothly. If you are in the market for a well-made standing desk that would look perfectly fine in just about any office or home, we would not hesitate to recommend the Varidesk Pro 60 Electric and there are lots of other Varidesk reviews with the same sentiment. Stay tuned for part two in six months or so…
switch to ergo products has completely eliminated any pain or discomfort despite decades of crazy hours behind screens. I hope you too weave in a bit of ergo into your lives.
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