Cheap vs Expensive Standing Desks: Which Is Better Value?

I’ve been testing standing desks in my home office for almost 5 years. Most of the desks I review cost more than $800. Some of them cost as much as $2,000. But predictably, a question kept bugging me – what’s it like to live with a cheap $200 desk instead?

I didn’t have to look far to find one.

Above: The $199 Chatham from Officeworks even has 24 five-star reviews. What can go wrong?

Harvey Norman sells the Oikiture range of single-motor standing desks that start at $214.

Amazon has cheap desks that cost even less. Fezibo and Poriya brands start at $179 (how do they come up with these names?)

And because I’m a standing desk nerd, I drove there this morning to buy one – so you don’t have to.

It has the same or similar specs to every other cheap standing desk under $250:

I discovered the problems below while testing the Chatham, but I’m reasonably confident that they’ll apply to any single-motor standing desk under $250.

Above: Let the testing begin.

Problem 1: The Gear.

It didn’t take long to find the Chatham’s Achilles’ heel. I stripped the motor to learn about the quality of its parts.

The image below shows the desk’s motor and gear assembly. The motor, which I’m holding in my hand, rotates the pink gear via a worm drive.

This pink gear, in turn, rotates the shaft that elevates the desk.

Here are the parts next to my case of AirPods for scale. I took this photo because I wanted you to realise how tiny these parts are.

This plastic gear is single-handedly responsible for raising and lowering both sides of the desk.

Above: The plastic gear explains the 50kg weight limit.

I wouldn’t call it “flimsy” right out of the gate, but I have strong doubts about its ability to endure typical standing desk loads for several years.

A metal gear would have been far more reassuring.

Problem 2: The Motor

The desk is very slow. Officeworks doesn’t publish an official figure, but I’ve seen enough standing desks to know it’s in the 10-15mm/sec range.

I don’t usually mind if the desk travels at a modest pace (in fact, I’ve criticised standing desk brands for duping consumers with excessive emphasis on desk speed).

But in my books anything lower than 25mm/sec starts to feel frustrating. For context, most modern premium standing desks travel at 30-50mm/sec.

Above: The motor is small but surprisingly mighty.

The good news is that the motor copes well with heavy loads. The desk doesn’t get even slower when fully loaded.

I put 25kg of weight on it, fully expecting the desk’s speed to reduce to a stall, but it remained unchanged.

Problem 3: The Joints

Expensive standing desk have joints that nest the leg inside the frame, which increases the desk’s stability.

The cheap Officeworks desk simply screws crossbars and leg columns together, with some overlap to assist with stability.

Incidentally, Chatham’s itself is also remarkably thin on the Chatham