So, we've nearly finished decorating the house, and the next thing on the list is my study. I currently have a crappy Ikea desk, which is OK as far as it goes, but I'm looking for recommendations for a replacement.

I'd like it to be adjustable-height (but probably not electric, and not to standing height -- just enough to get it to the right height for me).

I prefer plain desks, so extra shelf modules or pullout drawers and stuff are not required. It needs to be fairly deep, and I'll be using at least 2 monitors (more likely 3), so it'll need to be fairly wide. Initially I'll be using the built-in monitor stands, but I am going to take a look at brackets/arms.

I quite like curved fronted desks, which should ease the strain on my shoulder when mousing.

And it needs some kind of cable management solution, whether that be a basket or whatever, or merely a privacy panel that I can fix things to.

So: recommendations?

I've got one of these Ikea desks in my office:

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S19807432/

I like it because it comes in plain white, has height adjustable legs and a curved front. It also doesn't cost the earth.

Nice and deep. On mine at the moment I have:

- two 23 inch displays (on a £80 monitor arm clamped to the desk)
- two laptops
- a couple of external drives
- old IBM sized keyboard
- KVM switch
- 8 port switch
- Mac mini
- Squeezebox Boom
- small Dell desktop tower
- HP scanner/printer
- much assorted other crap

They also do some screw on cable trays that I should really invest in:

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/30200253/

These are the monitor arms I use, they've come down in price since I bought them.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/MDM05-Monitor-St...8623&sr=8-4

Have you seen camelcamelcamel.com?

Peter

I have, I use it all the time. When I bought them the usual price was £80, it is off the left hand end of that graph

Oh, actually, I lied. Just checked my Amazon purchase history. They were £59.99 when I got them...

Andy, how's the build quality on that Ikea desk? The last time I went to Ikea I was a little shocked at how utterly shoddy their desks were, specifically. Ikea isn't usually the best-built stuff out there, but their desks seemed like the worst quality stuff in the entire store. Extremely thin top surfaces, questionable stability where the legs met the table, very few of them with any sort of bracing at the legs... I was just a little taken aback by it.

We're going to be looking for a new desk for my wife, and I'd be totally fine with Ikea, except for these perceived issues...

My desk is very well made and sturdy, nice big chunky welds on the legs etc

However, I know from experience that that doesn't necessarily mean that the same model desk that they currently sell is the same. They definitely change some of their designs over time to tweak the costs, sometimes for the worst.

For example, my desk used to be an Ikea desk that was a large chunk of laminated birch, nearly two inches thick. However when I went back to buy another one a year later, while the product still looked the same, it was completely different. Instead of a solid chunk, it was a frame of laminated birch, with a sheet of birch ply stuck to each side (meaning it was hollow).

I haven't inspected the Galant desks in store recently to see if they have messed with the design.

Also, I suspect that it is highly likely that the same product can have different design and/or materials in different markets.

Ikea can be the source of some well designed, well made, total bargains. It can also be the source of some utter crap

It should be said that the legs on my Galant desk have no bracing. The are just circular cross section tubes welded to circular cross section fitting which bolt into the metal frame under the desk.

But they are still going strong after 10 years of daily use, loaded with much more stuff than is on the average desk.

I'll certainly check in store before I buy anything. I've got an Ikea desk right now, and it's fine, strength-wise, but the top is cheap laminated fibreboard and easily scratched. Scratches tend to swell if they get damp (from cups of coffee, etc.).

I'm fairly sure that my previous company uses these desks or something very similar. They're pretty good, but the cables drop behind the privacy panel, which is fine in an office where they're back-to-back, but might be a challenge in my (smallish) study.

My Galant desk has a very scratch resistant melamine (or something similar) top layer. Apart from one small mark, where I dropped a screw driver on it a week after buying it, it has literally zero visible wear* after 10 years of 50+ hours a week usage.

I suspect this is a case where it matters which finish you opt for, the wood effect finishes that the Galants come in didn't look nearly as robust as the white one I have.

* though it looks as if it is probably not quite as blindingly white as when it started, it is slowly creeping towards the yellow end of white

The curve on those looks a little gentle for my liking, the Galant curve is more pronounced.

Ordered.

My office here consists of about fifteen linear feet of beechwood table tops from Ikea, similar to the current VIKA BYSKE offering, arranged around the office on tubular steel legs similar to the VIKA ADILS ones. There are also now height adjustable versions of those legs at Ikea. No curves on the desktop, but tons of work/clutter area.

The Galant should still be the same quality it's always been - I check them maybe once every 3 times I visit a store. That system uses mounting rails under the table tops so the thinness doesn't affect the strength and stability.

My current Ikea desk is a big slab of of one their kitchen counter tops (about 2" thick, white on one side, grey on the other with a faux bamboo edging) with 4 of their tubular adjustable legs.

I've got tons of parts kicking around the house here. Some 4 or 5 ("8"-shaped) red desk tops, 6 of so 3x3' Galant tops and many sets of legs - all from my previous office setup at my last place.

If someone DID want something motorized, the Geek Desk seems to be one of the better "deals."

We have these at work:
http://www.biomorphdesk.com/p-6-personal-desk.aspx
http://www.biomorphdesk.com/images/product/large/personal-1.jpg

They come in motorized and crank adjust. They also have a bunch of accessories that I don't ever use. Shelves and such.

Mine currently has a 4 head setup of 2208WFP monitors in a portrait-landscape-portrait-landscape setup.

I have a Galant at home with four pieces to make a rather large corner shape desk.

I enjoy both.

Personally I use Ikea kitchen worktops for my desk(s). Really cheap, quite deep and I can make them the perfect height for me.

A simple baton across the supporting wall and 3 cheap table legs, and after a little bit of cutting with a circular saw you have your very own custom fitted desk.

Ikea also do some nice cable management stuff in their office section. I have some cable hole tidies and some racking that hangs off the underneath of the desk for wires etc...

This solution also means you have a super solid surface, and it worked out much cheaper than any other solution I could find.

Cheers

Cris

This is what is typically bought at work.

They will last forever, but you could buy, and toss, a lot of IKEA desks for the same money.

I know I shouldn't be so stuck up, but I have to snicker at any company using CRT monitors in their promotional materials. That's just lazy.

Not so sure about the lazy part. There are a lot of frugal businessmen still using crt's.

I don't know about the frugal part, but I know some folks around here that are still using CRTs. Last year one of the machines I used was still using a ViewSonic P220F. That is probably the most common CRT around here (not that CRTs are common, but they are still around). In fact, it wasn't until last month that I got around to tossing 6 SGI CRTs that were in my lab.

Yeah, but it's the equivalent of those 50's housewife adverts or a 70's car advert. It looks dated, which is rarely what you want in advertising.

On the other hand, if you want to show off how strong your desk is, putting a 22" CRT on it should do the trick.

You could always build your own.

I picked up one this morning. It seems pretty solid. I also grabbed the cable management kit and tray.

It is large, though. It's definitely going to fill the (small) room. As a point of fact, you can't get it into an '02 Ford Focus 5dr -- I had to leave it at the collection point in Ikea and nip home to pick up my roof bars and some bungee cord.

Hey we have a 02 Focus 5 door.

I got the cable tray accessory when I bought the desk, and it's OK. The one thing that it doesn't cope very well with is power strips. If you put the strip on the tray, it becomes very difficult to plug-in/remove anything larger than a standard UK plug (think wall-wart plugs here). It's also a bit of a PITA to fit.

I'm thinking that the correct answer is a couple of L-brackets, some Contiboard mounted vertically -- like a fairly short privacy panel, and then to mount the power strips (and some sticky cable tidies) to that.

(*) I'm re-examining the desk arrangement because I'll be mostly WFH as of Monday, so I needed to tidy up my study.

I also have a Galant, black/brown wooden finish, for my PC, and I actually really like it. Admittedly, I don't use it much as I spend most of my day in the office, but it's been used anyway a lot for 7 years now. I do not know if it does scratch easily, but it is possible. Very very sturdy in every other regard, though, in my experience.

That's just what I did at home (except without the extra Contiboard, because the Ikea desk I have already had a little panel there) and it works very well. Things like hubs and APs can often be "wall"-mounted too.

Peter

Yes.

(I'm so embarrassed about that crooked "Panasonic" label...)

tanstaafl.

I think you need more USB shit.

Ok, I can't help asking: why so many USB devices?

Uhhh.. because I have a lot of USB stuff?

1) Kindle. To charge it or put books into it, I need USB.
2) Vantec. That's the dock for one of my two external hard drives.
3) Fan. That's a little USB cooling fan for the external HD in the Vantec.
4) Olympus. That's how we download pictures from my wife's camera.
5) Panasonic. That's how we download pictures from my camera.
6) Std. USB. Sometimes I need to connect something, like an empeg.
7) iPod. The only way a Shuffle can charge is through USB.
8) Printer. It was easier to network the printer with USB instead of Ethernet.
9) iPhone. Sometimes SWMBO wants to charge her iPhone at my desk.
10) Webcam. What can I say? My webcam is a USB device.
11) My second external HD. (All my SATA ports are used by my four internal hard drives plus the DVD burner.)
12) USB Hub. It was easier to daisy-chain the second hub than direct connect it.
13) Mouse. Are there any optical mice that are not USB?
14) Scanner. I don't know how to connect it other than USB. (There is a 10-pin round connector that I don't know what it is for.)

I guess not all of the devices need to be plugged in all the time, but it's easier not to have to dig through drawers to find the right cords and fumble around behind the monitor to plug them in when I need them. The six cords that are used intermittently are all ready to plug into the appropriate device at a moment's notice. The remaining eight pretty much need to be connected all the time.

tanstaafl.

Retirement in Mexico sounds stressful.

Ok, I see many USB devices I would normally connect to back ports you are connecting to USB hubs. That explains it.

I have webcam, mouse+touchpad (Logitech Unify, so 1 USB dongle for all), card reader, and keyboard connected to the back of my PC case.

Then I have two USB cables - one terminating with USB mini, one terminating with USB Micro - on my desk ready to accept occasional devices such as phone, camera, GPS, etc.

Only partly. While all 14 of the cables have standard connectors on the hub side, I have (and need) nine different connectors on the device ends:

Kindle, Olympus, Panasonic, iPod, and iPhone are all proprietary. Then there are four different USB connectors: Standard-A, Standard-B, Micro-B, and Mini-B.

USB... Universal Serial Bus. What part of "Universal" am I missing here?

Then there is my "Charging Closet" which at last count had ten wall-warts plugged in for everything from cameras (three different kinds) to electric razor to Dewalt cordless drill to Rio Karma to Nokia cell phone to electric toothbrush to... some I don't even remember off the top of my head.

tanstaafl.

Possibly for a 35mm slide scanner attachment.

-ml

My Kindles are standard microUSB. Maybe you have an older version?

Also, all my cameras are MiniUSB, but I do remember having few ones in the past that had no standard connector.

Yes, I had a similar scanner.

I believe the last couple of Kindles are microUSB, and most of the market is standardizing around that, but it would not surprise me at all if Doug's cameras had proprietary connections. Apparently they haven't gotten the memo that nobody wants to carry around a cable that only works with a single device. I really hate that.

For example, I have a set of bluetooth headphones that have a proprietary cable, but what bothers me is that it's just barely different from microUSB, and they really could have gone with the standard instead of doing their own thing. Grr.

I can't admonish you, Doug. I have the following USB devices plugged in:

-Logitech unifying receiver (for keyboard and mouse)
-Logitech C910 webcam
-Blue Snowball microphone (for client calls - I love this thing)
-Fitbit charging station
-External hard drive
-External DVD burner (because my computer case is too far away and I'm lazy)
-Griffin Powermate (volume control and some other fancy stuff)
-My monitor (so I can plug things in temporarily directly to the monitor)
-USB hub (for some of these devices that don't have long USB cables so they can't reach the back of the computer)

It's not as many as you, Doug, but sometimes these USB devices accumulate...

I usually make use of the USB hubs that are included in my monitors. Connected directly to the PC, I have just a Unifying receiver and the receiver for my wireless headset. Of course, a factor in this is the flaky USB hub on my motherboard, which doesn't seem to cope with a large number of devices.

For charging phones, etc., I use the AC/USB adapters, and plug them directly into the wall -- USB ports don't generally provide enough power to charge quickly. And all of that stuff's in the kitchen, 'cos it's downstairs and convenient.

That said, I don't have a printer or scanner, and I use an SD reader for the camera and video camera.

Any USB device using Standard-A as a slave port is a witch. Burn it.


I've got a Dell U3011W, and as a monitor it's just lovely: a huge step up from the Apple Cinema Display that I had before. But its onboard firmware is an absolute festival of "yes, this is technically a way of doing it, but it's very clearly the wrong way". There are programmable buttons that you can assign functions to (tick) but although you can assign "bring up the inputs menu" to them, you can't assign actual entries on the inputs menu (slap). And, which is what made me bring it up, it has a built-in USB hub (tick) which when the monitor is turned (soft) off, doesn't become an unpowered hub, it just goes dead along with all downstream devices (slap).

Peter

This is why my Logitech Unifying receiver is plugged into the PC, rather than (either of) my Dell 2209WAf monitors. Otherwise, wake-from-keyboard-or-mouse doesn't work.

You know, I could have sworn I had one here on my desk. I thought I had a PS/2 mouse that was optical here. But now that I dig around, I think I was mistaken.

It's possible that the PS/2 plug specification doesn't supply the necessary level of power for the LED and/or laser circuitry required for optical mice, thus making PS/2+Optical impossible. On the other hand, something in my brain is tickling me, telling me that once I used to have a PS/2 optical mouse.

Anyone know for sure if such a beast ever existed? I'm curious.

I believe the old Sun stations (like 1980s) used a serial (RS-232?) interface for their optical mice.

Using one right now - Logitech M-SBF69. IIRC it came with an adapter so it could talk USB as well, but it's quite a while ago... Keep switching between this and a Logitech optical marble thumb trackball, but that one is USB.

Yes, they were optical and serial - not sure it was RS-232 or something else.

Those old mice with that silly grid turned me off optical mice for a very long time. It wasn't until I saw a new one being used by a friend for gaming that I got over my phobia.

That's odd. I have the first Dell 30" model, and it doesn't do that. I charge my keyboard and mouse exclusively using the monitor's USB ports, and I'm able to leave the monitor overnight and the devices will charge even when it goes to a soft sleep.

I've never seen a PS/2 optical mouse, BUT I seem to remember that at work we used for years USB optical mice + USB to PS/2 adapter, connected to a PS/2 port. So, IIRC, PS/2 would provide needed power.

(Responding for fun, and to share differences, not to criticize. I'm actually pretty impressed by the USB setup you have Doug


For me 2 and 11 are covered by having a NAS. Benefits for my setup, I can get to the files from my desktop, laptop, or iPad. Lower power use from the NAS being on and sleeping the disks when idle then a desktop PC serving files.

8, I have a network printer, but I've found I print so infrequently, it's still in the moving box. Work has printers too (obviously being retired, not a possibility for you Doug these days. I think I'd trade positions with you if I could

9 I have a charging dock near my bed that charges the iPhone 3x faster then standard USB. For data exchange it's all via WiFi now. And since my iPhone is my camera, 5 also goes away. Second I walk into range of any WiFi, my phone sends the photos up into a private cloud spot. I think if I ever get a full sized camera again, it will be one that can use an SD card, and the Eye-Fi card.

10 is covered by having a webcam built into my desktop monitor, laptop, and iPad.

13, I had a bluetooth optical mouse, and now have a bluetooth laser mouse for gaming. Bluetooth trackpad for everything else. Also bluetooth keyboard. With a bluetooth receiver built into every machine I own, no USB port is taken up. Pretty sure I have enough blueteeth for a full set of dentures now

We have a few of these 12-port switchable USB hubs at work:

http://www.cyberguys.com/product-details/?productid=60801.

One of them isn't even plugged into a computer. Just used to charge various wireless mikes and laser pointers.

Cyberguys now list a huger "Mondo Hub" with 20+ ports. But like $80.

Wait one. There are four power modes on most monitors:

• Off at the wall
• Turned off by the button, but still powered from the wall. The power indicator is generally off.
• In standby. The indicator is generally orange.
• In use. The screen is showing cat videos and the indicator is generally blue or green.

Which one are you and Peter referring to when you talk about "soft"?

I generally turn my monitors off at the button, because even the low power modes use power (and my desktop PC doesn't standby when it should, so I just turn it off when I'm not using it).

Right, it's when "turned off by the button, but still powered from the wall" that the USB hub unjustly goes dead. Perhaps "soft off" was the wrong word for that, but the button on this model is clearly a button (controlling the firmware) as opposed to a switch (physically switching mains power).

Peter

Look at what I found.