The Vari Ergo Electric Standing Desk is a huge improvement over previous iterations of its take on ergonomic desktops. Like its predecessors, this dual-motor electric standing desk uses the company’s “ComfortEdge” terminology to indicate that it features a rounded edge desktop that won’t dig into your arms as you type. The Ergo is the most comfortable, most space-efficient and sleekest desk in Vari’s lineup. If I didn’t have to make room for new desks to test and review, it would likely be a lifelong keeper.
Aside from its supercomfortable desktop, this desk has solid motors, an intuitive assembly process, a few extras to help with cable management, and it features atop-notch collision detection system that will hopefully stop you from scoring gashes into your drywall if your floors are uneven (definitely not speaking from personal experience there).
I did run into some issues with managing all of the cables below its desktop, and concurrently some issues arose with the sensitivity of Vari’s impact prevention tech. But overall, this standing desk is one of the best I’ve ever used. All it needs is for Vari’s optional cable management tray to come included with the rest of the package. I still think it’s one of the best standing desks you can get right now along with the most comfortable one I’ve tested yet.
Vari Ergo Electric Standing Desk: Cheat Sheet
- What is it? A dual-motor electric standing desk with a contoured front edge that provides an ergonomic resting spot for your arms.
- Who is it for? Day-long desk dwellers who want the option to sit or stand while they work along with a comfortable resting spot for their forearms.
- What does it cost? The Ergo costs $699 on Vari’s site.
- What do we like? Its comfortable desktop, two corner grommets, easy assembly and disassembly, the included hook for your headphones, and its collision detection system.
- What don’t we like? Cable management is difficult without add-ons, and its collision detection system can sometimes be too sensitive.
Vari Ergo Electric Standing Desk: Specs
Vari Ergo Electric Standing Desk: The ups
Though this desk isn’t trying to blow you away with a bunch of fancy tech, there’s still plenty to laud about it. Simply put, it does the bare essentials wonderfully, and doesn’t try to force any unnecessary extra features. It’s a sleek desk that functions as the ideal blank canvas for the rest of the gear in your home office.
A comfortable, practical work surface
The Ergo’s desktop is, in essence, the justification for its existence when Vari already has several quality standing desks with the same dimensions. Though the contouring looks subtle in photos, my forearms noticed how much the angled front end of this desktop slopes down. It’s rounded out with just the right shape to smooth the transition between my office chair’s armrests and my keyboard. Better yet, the finish of the wood is just glossy enough to not feel abrasive, but not so glossy that my arms got sweaty and started sliding around on hot days.
The desktop also has two grommets that help you keep things tidy on the topside of your desk. Overall, this desk has the capacity to look very clean with a full setup of office equipment on top of it, and you can customize the wood’s finish to match the hardwood floors or the rest of your decor in its final resting place.
Collision detection
When I moved into my current apartment, which is in an ancient building in West Philadelphia with plenty of room layout quirks, I was worried about damaging the walls and windowsills with my desk. Luckily, this desk has a superb “safety sensor” built into the motor that prevents the desk from moving up or down if a sudden change in resistance is detected.
This proved especially handy when I first got the desk situated in my new office, since I positioned it in front of two windows to get their natural light while I work. Right off the bat, I bumped the desk into one of my windowsills, and I thought the poor thing might be a goner after the 200-pound-weight-limit motors smashed through it. But the desk stopped instantly, backed off a couple inches, and left little more than a dent in the ten layers of cruddy white paint my landlord left dripping off the bottom.
It works in both directions, too: if you forgot that you put a huge box under your desk or mistakenly left your office chair at full height, this desk will not crush them. Not even flimsy cardboard. I’ve seen safety measures like this before, but never something this sensitive.
Easy assembly
Another one of my woes as an apartment dweller and serial mover is lugging heavy furniture from place to place, often with limited help. As such, I actually discarded a lot of furniture from my previous home just so I didn’t have to carry it all in a moving truck. But I kept the Ergo because I had no problem disassembling it into three pieces.
You can remove the legs (as well as the feet) from this desk to transform it from a hundred-pound behemoth into a collection of pieces that are entirely manageable to carry on your own. The desktop can still be a hurdle, but you can slide it on smooth floors without hurting it or yourself. An old blanket you don’t mind getting dirty can go a long way here.
Vari Ergo Electric Standing Desk: The downs
One consequence of the Ergo’s simplicity is that it lacks some features I would consider valuable in a crowded workspace such as my own. I also had some frustrations with the anti-collision tech in this desk working just a little too well.
Cable management woes
As much as I love the two grommets Vari includes for cable management with the Ergo, I was disappointed to see that’s where the built-in cable management effectively ends. There’s no space to tuck one of the best surge protectors on the underside, so I’ve had to resort to letting mine sit on the floor and leave half a dozen cables dangling.
You can supplement this desk with Vari’s optional cable management tray, which mounts underneath the desktop with a few screws, but I think it’s a bummer that this comes as an extra — especially one that costs $50. I’ll be ordering one to test shortly, but in the meantime, I will have to tolerate the underside of my desk looking like a piece of machinery from The Matrix.If you want a very customizable standing desk that comes with one included, check out the Uplift V2.
A bit too sensitive
As a consequence of my previous gripe, all the dangling cables I have under my desk taught me that the safety sensor can sometimes be too sensitive for its own good. The moment one of my cables ran short and lifted the surge protector off the ground, that was enough to make the impact prevention measures kick in. This made it impossible to raise the desk to its full height without lifting the surge protector off the ground and holding it up to the bottom of the desk to prevent any of the cords from going taut.
As a final remedy, I placed a small stool under the desk on top of which my surge protector sits. It’s not a glamorous solution, and it does prevent the desk from lowering to its minimum height, but I seldom prefer to have it set that low anyway.
Vari Ergo Electric Standing Desk: Verdict
For $700, you can get a desk that isn’t nearly as capable — or comfortable — as the Vari Ergo Electric. This desk doesn’t try to wow you with a million bells and whistles, but rather relies on getting the basics right. It has powerful motors that can handle a ton of weight (more accurately, one tenth of a ton), it’s easy to set and adjust your height presets, and it’s just plain sleek. And just as Vari advertises, it’s the most forearm-friendly desktop money can buy.
Without an additional cable management tray purchase, the sleekness of this desk does unfortunately rely on your own minimalism. That said, functionally speaking, I’ve never been driven mad by a cluttered desk, and I appreciate that the clutter doesn’t spread onto my work surface. Once I get the cable management tray in and spend some time testing its limits, I’ll add an update describing the impact of the upgrade. But based on our Vari L-Shaped Electric Standing Desk and Vari Curve Electric Standing Desk reviews, I’m almost certain it will make a huge difference to an already excellent desk.
