Best Offices of 2024

Testing desks is a subjective game. Like office chairs, the tests are based on comfort, reliability, and ease of setup rather than things you can test in electronics like wattage and battery life. However, I have still tested them thoroughly and will continue to test them for longevity in the coming months.

I tested these desks by asking three people to try each one out. They all used the desk for at least 16 hours and then gave me their impressions. The three people were respectively 6 feet, 1 inch tall; 5 feet, 8 inches tall; and 5 feet, 4 inches tall, to give me a good cross-section of the average user height.

Setup time and package quality

Building desks can often be difficult and time-consuming. For each desk, I timed how long it took to unpack and assemble it, and noted whether or not the instructions were easy to follow. I followed the instructions as closely as possible, so that each build was completed as if I had never built one before. I also thoroughly inspected the packaging to make sure it was undamaged and sturdy enough to support the desk inside. Any damage was noted and images were sent to the manufacturers for review.

Structural integrity

Modern desks need to be able to support a fair amount of weight. If you’re sitting at a writing desk, you might only have a small laptop, but if you’re using a gaming desk, it’s probably also got two monitors and a giant gaming PC. For each desk, I checked the maximum load specification and tried to match it to the materials we actually use on our desks.

I used:

• A heavy gaming PC tower
• Two 27-inch gaming monitors on a dual monitor arm
• A MacBook Pro
• Two different keyboards and various mice and trackpads
• Mine Oculus Quest 2
• My phone stand and USB hub
• A podcast microphone and headphones

Depending on the length and load capacity of the desk, I combine these parts. Then I check if the top bends or if the desk does not feel irregular while I work on it.

The wobble-wobbles

This is a bit of a throwback to my dad’s furniture making days. Everything my dad built would be critiqued by my mom, and if it didn’t pass inspection she would say, “It’s a little wobbly, isn’t it, honey?” After I built each desk and loaded it up for normal use, I would check it for wobbliness-wobbliness. This meant I would rock it side to side and front to back to make sure all the screws, bolts, and fasteners were holding everything tight.