Flexispot E8 review: Elegant & practical
The Flexispot E8 desk is a serious contender for one of the best on the market, as its simple, yet effortless and customizable design makes it a very compelling option for buyers.
The world of gaming furniture, like desks and chairs can feel like a place dominated by options that have a lot of frills and garishness. It can be hard to find a modern, high-quality desk that doesn’t come with RGB or other gamer-heavy aesthetics.
However, Flexispot has carved out its place in the market as just that – practical, simple, and efficient. Its desks are also not so loud as to be out of place in a work office either. That said, their uniform practicality doesn’t preclude them from being excellent to game on regardless.
That’s the reputation I knew when we were offered a review of the Flexispot E8. We’ve been using the standing desk for a while now, and we can now answer, is this one of the best desks on the market in it’s price range? To spoil you, it absolutely is.
Key Specs
- Size: Variable (though we used 180cm long, 80cm wide)
- Surface: Oak (various Colours available)
- Features: Variable worktop, Automatic standing-to-sitting system, adjustable to 60cm-125cm, can hold weight up to 125kgs
- Price: £519.98-£609.98 (depending on the length of the worktop)
Assembly
Perhaps the most complicated thing about the Flexispot E8 is the process of putting it together. That’s also probably a compliment to the desk itself, as while it is a little involved, it’s not too hard to put together.
This package comes in two pieces, and while it’s hard to say if this is a common issue, our boxes containing the worktop and the desk legs arrived on separate days. That said, this shouldn’t generally be an issue.
The one thing to really be aware of here is that the desk and its legs are heavy. You’re going to want to assemble this where you intend to use it, or you’re going to need another person to move it around with you. It wasn’t so heavy as to be impossible to get to the destination I needed it, but it was heavy enough that I felt bad for the delivery person who had to carry it to a top-floor flat. You may need to make some preparations to move it around, especially up or down stairs.
Thankfully, once you have it in place, the desk is actually relatively easy to put together. If you’ve ever put together an involved piece of flatpack furniture, you should be fine. This isn’t something you strictly need another person to help with and you won’t need much more than a power drill, but it will be an afternoon project for a couple of hours if you go it alone. It will definitely be easier with another helping, but you’re able to assemble it in pieces so the weight issue doesn’t persist in the actual building of the desk.
Design
Speaking strictly about the look of the desk, it looks excellent. Mine came with black legs and a Mahogany top, and it’s a beautiful unassuming design that doesn’t have a loud ‘look-at-me’ vibe you might see on a more gamer-orientated desk. This is something that will fit into almost any situation, be that your study, work office or gaming room.
That said if you want something different, perhaps one of the best features of the Flexispot E8 is that it’s also highly customizable. When you go to purchase the desk, you can make a lot of choices to find a desk that will fit into the ambiance of your living situation. Again, all of these are pretty professional looking, so if you were looking for something a little more “loud”, you may want to look elsewhere.
The desk also comes with a reasonable room for cable management built in. This can help make it so wires don’t dangle as it moves from standing to sitting. That said, if you’ve got a lot of cables to contend with, we would recommend buying the available cable duct add-on.
Controls
Perhaps the best thing about the Flexispot E8, besides its attractive design, is the ease with which it goes from standing to sitting. This process is controlled by a keypad included with the desk. This touch-sensitive pad makes it so you can adjust the desk to how you need it.
While the desk raises and lowers fairly slowly, it feels deliberate. You can raise the desk a millimeter at a time, so you can find the perfect height for your body, chair, and room. It takes my desk exactly 10 seconds to go from my 72.1cm sitting position to 110cm standing position. Being reasonable though, it’s hard to envision a scenario where this would need to be any faster.
However, the nicest feature is you can save presets onto the control pad. You don’t need to manually raise and lower every time you intend to change the configuration of the desk. Instead, you can just save your sitting and standing positions, allowing you to switch between both with the touch of a button. This is nice as you can set your desk to standing, walk away to do something for a couple of seconds, and come back and be ready to go.
Another important part of this process is that the desk can bear a lot of weight – advertised to be around 125kgs. I currently have my computer on the desk, along with two hefty monitors and a microphone. To test this to the limits, I also had someone sit on the desk with all of this on top of it and it performed impressively with no stutters in its steady pace. We wouldn’t recommend you regularly lift and lower your brother on the desk, but the fact it can effectively is impressive enough.
Should you buy it?
The Flexispot E8 is an exceptional desk, whether it be in sitting or standing form. From the impressive worktops, and the excellent utility of the automatic legs makes it easy to recommend for anyone in search of a top-tier desk.
Flexispot has done an excellent job at creating a desk that is functionally flawless and looks sophisticated. Competitors like the Secretlab Magnus Pro come with a lot of frills and flourishes that scream “gamer” in a way some might find obnoxious. The Flexispot E8 does away with all that, creating a sleek, professional, and more practical design, and at less of a cost.
Having said that though, with a decent mouse mat, we’ve had absolutely no problem with the desk for gaming either. The worktop has held up wonderfully and has so much extra space, that we’ve even taken to putting our desktop on top of it, with ample amounts of room remaining to fly your hand across in intense Overwatch moments.
The verdict: 5/5
Flexispot has done an excellent job with the E8 and it’s one of the very best desks on the market in its price range. The only way we couldn’t recommend it is if you weren’t willing to spend this much on a desk. However, if you are looking for a quality product, it’s going to be hard to find one of this excellence for much cheaper.
This is a brilliant, all-purpose desk that I’ve no worries about recommending. Be it for work, or to game on, the simplicity and automatic standing functionality make this a top choice for anyone looking for the desk in its price range.