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Over a year ago, right at the start of the pandemic, we sat around here at PC Guide and discussed how things were going to change – not just on a social distancing benchmark but how it would change how people worked at home. As the offices closed and we decamped to Zoom meetings around our kitchen tables it soon became obvious that we weren’t prepared for it.
The chairs we were sat on and the tables we fashioned into makeshift work desks were not going to cut it in the long run. A couple of months in our backs were aching, our necks were stuff and we started to developed claws where our hands once were from reaching for badly positioned mice and keyboards.
Some companies tried to help – I was fortunate as a writer to have a decent home set up, but my wife’s company sent her a proper office chair and a desk made out of cardboard – yes you read that right – a recycled cardboard desk to work from. It was actually quite cool and practical, at least until you spilled a coffee on it then, well cardboard’s gonna cardboard.
So naturally enough, people have started looking for more long-term solutions. Ones that would fit in with the style of their home, but that may be offered a bit more than a throw it together job from Ikea.
Standing Ovation
Enter the E7 from Flexispot – a desk with more than enough futuristic extras about it to elevate it – as we will see, quite literally, above the competition.
The E7 is a height-adjustable desk that easily switches between your regular sit-down desk and a standing desk at the tap of a button. Yes, this is a mechanically powered desk and a very impressive one at that.
Now before you stop reading assuming this is out of your price range, it’s not, but more on that later.
You can get the desk in a variety of guises from the color of the mechanical legs to the finish of the top surface, which also comes in a couple of different sizes too so you can fit it in your place without too many traumas.
Construction is nothing excessive and is just a case of bolting the large, motorized legs to the desktop. It’s best doing this upside down in reality, just make sure you have enough space to flip the finished article over, and also be aware that, man are the legs heavy so you are ending up with a sturdy piece of furniture here, a second pair of hands may well be useful.
From there it is a case of screwing on the control panel and attaching the cables to the power which sits in the supporting crossbar. This then connects to a motor in the legs and you can tuck the wires away out of sight using the included cable management. Plug it in and you are good to go.
One supplying power the control panel pops into life and you can press the up and down arrows to adjust the height. It’s like magic and something from the future, very cool. It’s not really easy to find a height to enable you to fit your larger-than-you-thought-it-was gaming chair underneath, but the real health benefits come from being able to tap a button and watch it rise to a standing height.
Without going into masses of science it should be fairly obvious that sitting down all day is bad for your ever-compressing spine. It’s good to get up and stretch but not many people have a standing desk at home. With the Flexispot E7 you can have both. When you feel as though you need a bit of a stretch, hit the standing button and get off your backside and continue working 10 seconds later. Very cool.
Safety First
The control panel comes with four preset buttons (which you can tweak and save your own favorite heights, as well and an up and down arrow for adjustments, and an LCD panel that shows the current height in centimeters. There is also a child lock function which is super-useful, not only to stop playing fingers but also because the buttons are extremely touch-sensitive and it’s easy to lean across and your desk starts rocketing up or down before you realize what’s going on.
There is another important safety feature built-in too in that the desk will stop its own motion if it comes into contact with something, so you can’t accidentally crush your PC like one of those cars you see at the scrap yard. Again, good stuff.
Aesthetically the desk looks great too and the variety of finishes means you can customize it to fit into your own surroundings. It’s remarkably easy to set up and use, can hold a considerable amount of weight on top without struggling (although most people will have their PC under it anyway so you are probably really only talking about a monitor or two that have any real weight.
The fact you can set your own presets is very convenient and the ease and speed of switching between them removes any inkling that this is a gimmick you won’t use after a few weeks.
Conclusion
It all sounds expensive, right? Well, you could go and spend $50 at Ikea for four legs and a tabletop that might serve your purpose but if you are looking for a little more flexibility for your work environment, especially when you consider how much you may well be using it in the coming months and years.
All in you are only looking at around $400 which is a ridiculously good price for what you are getting here. Looking at similar motorized desks from competitors could easily set you back twice as much, but nothing about this feels like you have taken the budget route. There’s also nothing stopping you from using a cheaper desktop either if you want to trim the overall cost – just screw it on. Flexispot also run flash sales on-site which brings the price down to an even more attractive level
The Flexispot E7 feels, looks, and is premium and the time has never been better to invest in yourself a little more and get yourself a desk that not only looks great but will help you stay healthy too.
Visit Flexispot’s store on Amazon or see the E7 on its website where it is currently on a flash sale.