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.