Are you looking for a good standing desk while you’re working from home? Check out our FlexiSpot electric standing desk review, as well as our comparison to the Ikea Bekant standing desk we used to own! FlexiSpot sent us this desk for free to review, and this post contains affiliate links.
FlexiSpot electric standing desk review
I am married to a healthy fit freak, so I started getting into standing desks back in 2012. I literally stacked old printer paper boxes up at my desk and put my monitor and keyboards on them. Yeah, this was almost certainly against the rules, but I did it. It made the day easier. I answered lots of questions from people wandering by…and I mostly would just say, “yep, I’m standing. That’s about it.”
A few years later, my work graduated to getting people adjustable sit/stand risers. This was a nice upgrade. But today I want to talk about standing desks. Specifically, I am going to talk about the FlexiSpot sit/stand electric desk and the Ikea sit/stand options.
Ikea Bekant electric sit/stand desk: Our first standing desk
The Ikea Bekant electric sit/stand desk was the first one we bought for the house. It was Mike’s desk, and he got it back when he was in grad school and spending a lot of time at his computer. He got one of the very large corner ones, and it was pretty expensive. I don’t remember how much it was, but it was definitely more than the $250 it retails for now.
Mike loved this desk for a while, especially because it had a large surface area on top. However, it was expensive back then, and it took a while to put together. I wasn’t involved in the setup process, but I do remember it being a bit time-consuming. (Again, this was several years ago, so it could be easier now that standing desks have evolved.)
The motor eventually stopped working after about a year. There was a recall on it, but we don’t live close to an Ikea, so we just decided to ditch the desk and get a regular one. Mike was out of school then and working in an office, so he had less of a need for a large desk at home.
(By the way, if you’re looking at Ikea sit/stand desks, the other electric option they have is the Idasen. It’s more expensive, but it would be worth considering if you want more bells and whistles.)
Standing desk options
A few months ago, the brand FlexiSpot approached me to see if I wanted a comped desk to review. I initially thought no—we didn’t have a need for one. Although I’d love a sit/stand desk, my desk also doubles as my craft space, so I knew it wouldn’t work for my needs.
I was about to say no when Mike suggested that I ask my brother and his girlfriend if they’d like one. They are both working from home indefinitely now and live in a small apartment, so I reached out to ask them. They said definitely—in fact, they were in the market for an electric sit/stand desk. So I put my order in with FlexiSpot!
(You also might noticed the shelves we helped them set up last year—check out my post on how to hang shelves in an apartment for more on that!)
FlexiSpot electric standing desk review
There are a few different FlexiSpot electric standing desks that you can choose from. We chose the quick set-up version. It all came in one big box, and everything was labeled clearly. I especially liked how the hardware was labeled in separate compartments in the baggie.
It was a simple set-up process. I did it myself while my brother entertained Ramona. I pretty much just had to put the legs in the bottom of the desktop and then add the feet. After plugging in the little electric riser thing, it was ready to go!
The brand markets it as a “5-minute assembly,” for the quick assemble standing desks, but I’d say it took more like 15 minutes. Honestly, cranking the manual wrench took most of the time. If you used a drill with an appropriate attachment, you could probably do it faster. By the way—everything you need came with it. I did not need a drill, as least for this version of the desk.
Once the desk was set up, we were able to adjust the bottoms of the feet on the desk to ensure everything was perfectly level. This is really important with an electric standing desk. You don’t want it to be off balance, or it could mess things up. We also liked how the motor is really small and quiet when you’re changing the desk’s position.
FlexiSpot electric standing desk with memory control
FlexiSpot also has another option that is a bit more expensive. The biggest difference in this model appears to be that it arrives in two packages and has an LED memory control panel. This panel has 7 buttons and allows you to program in 3 desk heights so that you can automatically adjust the desk with one button.
Mike said that this would have been a really helpful feature—a sitting without a cat in your lap setting, a sitting with a cat in your lap setting, and a standing setting. 🙂 But this version is more expensive, so if you’re looking for a budget version, I can’t find too many more differences between this version and the version we got.
So is the FlexiSpot electric standing desk good?
We say yes, definitely. It came in one box, it was extremely easy to put together, and it was a good price point. It also looks nice—there are a few different color combinations for the legs and desk top, but we went with black on black.
I think that the tabletop is the perfect size if you’re just using it as a workspace. But Mike definitely loved the bigger tabletop on the Ikea Bekant. For my brother’s apartment, this is a great size. I obviously can’t speak to how well the desk holds up yet. I’ll update this post in a few months!
Also to address the fact that I got this for free—I was not required to write a post, but I felt like it might be helpful to people. I can say with 100% confidence that if we needed a standing desk in the future, I would see what FlexiSpot has to offer.
And if I had my own craft room, I would have definitely taken this desk for myself for my computers and repurposed my current desk into a craft space. Alas, we don’t have that kind of room, but maybe one day! Here are a few more pics.
In the meantime, you can check out more specs and reviews on the desk we got here on Amazon. I hope this post was helpful!
For workspace-related DIYs, check out my easy DIY monitor stand, my DIY laptop case, my DIY printer stand, and my tutorial on how to seal an Ikea Gerton desktop!
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