Yesterday, I worked at a desk for an entire day for the first time in years. That’s no small feat as I’ve struggled for ages to find the best standing desk for me, something that’s easy to adjust and comfortable to rest my arms on because of my bad wrist. The Vari Ergo Electric Standing Desk turned out to be just the desk I was looking for.
If you’ve ever had an injury in your wrist, you know the healing process is seldom pretty. The wrist houses a complicated junction of small bones, and any break or sprain stiffens the whole area for months or years, especially if your break warrants a full-arm cast like mine did. I’ve been dealing with nerve issues and stiffness since I crashed my mountain bike into a bollard two years ago, and it has made my job as a writer noticeably harder to navigate.
As such, I’m pretty picky about where I sit to work. Working on the couch is nice for a few hours, since I can prop pillows up for support, but my back curses me if I do it for too long. Thankfully, Vari has given me a more permanent solution.
The Ergo’s contoured front end, extra fine adjustability, and buttery soft surface make it a heavenly alternative to your average sharp-edged desk. Better yet, I’ve found that it’s a breeze to take apart and move on my own — a much-appreciated break when excessive heavy lifting makes my nerves go haywire.
A desktop made for human forearms
The Ergo’s name reflects its design priorities aptly. The front end of this desk slopes downward at a shallow angle that blends seamlessly with the remaining surface area. This smooth blending prevents any pronounced edges from digging into your forearms while you use your keyboard.
In my case, the sharp angles that are common on other desks tend to rub up against the tendons along my ulna, which is the bone I broke. That extra pressure leads to shooting pain that runs all the way from my pinky through my shoulder. The pain has become much more manageable in recent months, but it’s still enough discomfort to make me stir-crazy after an hour or so. Hence my surprise when I sat through almost four hours at my keyboard before I noticed I hadn’t budged.
To boost the comfort factor even more, Vari made this desk with an ultra-soft wood with a light laminate finish. Not only is it far more comfortable to rest on than I expected, but it also strikes the perfect balance between the soft, grippy comfort of matte finishes while remaining easy to clean.
I can’t say I’ve sat at a desk with a fully polished surface since the cruddy tables at my high school, but I certainly appreciate that my arms don’t get sweaty and start sliding around like they did back then. Better yet, I don’t feel like I need to worry about my workspace looking terrible when I accidentally put a cold drink down without a coaster.
Pleasantly sensitive adjustability
Another hurdle that awkward arm injury introduced to my life is difficulty lifting large, heavy objects. As a result, I’ve largely used only electric standing desks. Unfortunately, many of those options have frustrated me with their input lag while adjusting. At my last job, I had a desk in my office that would coast multiple inches past where I was trying to set it to. Every single time. In fact, it almost crushed my chair once. When I set up my first home office, my priority was finding a model that was less unruly.
I get the limitations manufacturers can have when they’re trying to design a motor that can micro-adjust while supporting up to 200 pounds. That said, I’ve also used a handful of standing desks that can stop on a dime, and the Ergo is among them. This puppy is so sensitive to inputs, even when I have piles of crud on top of it, that I hardly have to anticipate any extra movement. There seems to be no variation in stopping power regardless of whether the desk is loaded or not, but I intend to keep pushing that limit as I continue testing for my full review. I have a bin full of metal bicycle parts that’s begging to sit on top of it.
The Ergo also detects obstacles in its path with ease, and it backs off the moment it meets pretty much any resistance. This function is so sensitive, in fact, that it detected a resistance change when its own power cord left the ground and lifted the surge protector it was plugged into. As tricky as that one hiccup was to diagnose, I was happy to see that degree of redundancy built into a desk that costs less than 700 bucks.
No moving help? No problem
Continuing on my note about heavy furniture being my bane, I’d be remiss to gloss over how easy it was to move this desk between apartments by myself. The whole thing is just a shade over 100 pounds, which I certainly can’t handle on my own, but you can take the Ergo’s legs off by undoing a handful of 5mm hex bolts, leaving you with three pieces that one person can handle with relative ease.
The desktop can still be awkward to navigate up a narrow flight of stairs, but I managed to get it up three stories of my Philly apartment building using a blanket and some patience. My arm was still sore the next day, but it was nowhere near the throbbing pain I had grown to expect from lifting and carrying things post-crash.
At a glance, this desk may not look like that much of a departure from the dozens of others we’ve tested, but I laud the small details that make this desk feel like it was built for long work sessions instead of just looking sleek (though, in my opinion, it has no problem doing that either).
My only regret I have regarding the desk is taking this long to review it. I’m still working on collecting some notes from a heavier-duty round of tests, but the last few months of moderate use have been more than promising. Now I just need to pair it with one of the best office chairs so I can easily alternate between sitting and standing throughout my workday.
