Secretlab Magnus Pro desk review: Beautiful, but expensive

The Secretlab Magnus Pro gaming desk is the company’s first attempt at a feature-packed height adjustable desk — and they’ve knocked it out of the park.

Secretlab revealed the Magnus back in 2021, bringing desks into their high-quality product lineup of gaming furniture supported by thousands of fans worldwide. Their efforts with gaming chairs even have themed collaborations such as Valorant, Overwatch, and more.

There was one feature commonly requested from the original gaming desk release, however: height adjustability.

Secretlab answered the requests in August 2022 with the Magnus Pro, their first attempt at a sit-to-stand desk complete with their infamous cable try and leatherette “magpad” accessories to provide a luxury experience to gamers.

We’ve had our hands on the Magnus Pro for a while and we’re ready to tell you whether or not it’s worth the massive $799 starting price tag.

Key Specs

• Size: 59.1″ Long, 27.6″ wide
• Surface: Steel, Leather with Magpad
• Weight: 125lbs
• Features: Steel construction, cable management tray, height adjustment, seamless control panel

Assembly

In usual Secretlab fashion, the Magnus Pro arrived at our doorstep in two extremely well-packed boxes with various types of foam protecting the top, bottom, sides, and corners of every piece of the desk from shipping damage.

The same focus on quality can be seen in the included toolkit as well, as the company provides both t-handle and regular-style hex wrenches to aid in assembly inside of a convenient packaging that we can’t help but tuck into a drawer for safekeeping.

It becomes apparent that it requires two people to assemble the desk right from the get-go, as the nearly full-metal construction of the Magnus Pro gives it quite a bit of heft — both boxes combined come out to roughly 125 lbs.

From installing the legs to screwing on the cable management tray, putting everything together is as easy as pie thanks to Secretlab’s clear-to-understand instructions leading the way.

After everything’s assembled you’ll be instructed to reset the inline height controller and you’ll be ready to rock and roll.

Nearly immediately, we noticed a burning smell coming from the main powered leg, but after a recall and repair, it was up and running fine again. This was due to our review unit being a pre-production model, and should not affect most users.

Design

When it comes to sit-to-stand desks, design is important. Constantly changing the height means paying attention to cable management, ensuring your cables are long enough to accommodate the height you’ll be using the desk, etc.

Secretlab has absolutely knocked it out of the park when it comes to making cable management a breeze. Underneath the back side of the Magnus Pro is the company’s now-infamous cable management tray that’s accessible from the top side thanks to a hinged cover that we absolutely are in love with.

Making the Magnus Pro one of a kind, however, is the power solution that Secrelab created that we believe is one of the best parts of the desk. Thanks to the ability to plug your power strip into the leg of the desk, all that is needed to power the motorized legs and your entire gaming setup is a single power cable plugged into the wall.

Thanks to the company’s magnetic cable management sheath and the ‘one cable powers all’ system, we are absolutely enthralled knowing that we never have to worry about kicking loose cables underneath the desk.

The in-house developed leatherette MAGPAD is a yet-another iconic addition to the Magnus line of desks, offering an easy-to-clean surface for the entire desk that offers surprisingly high-quality mouse tracking as well. It connects to the desk with its magnetic backing, and we found in our testing that it stays right in place no matter how hard you try to move it around.

We also received the MAGRGB add-on, a diffused RGB strip that Secretlab developed with Nanoleaf. It features a handful of magnets on the back, allowing it to snap right onto the underside of the desk inside of the cable tray so it beautifully shines out of the crack between the desk surface and cable management cover. Included with the MAGRGB is a simple controller that can stick to the side of the desk if you want, but we’ve opted to just control the lights via the Nanoleaf mobile app.

One thing we did notice about the MAGRGB, however, is that it doesn’t hook to the desk as intended when using Secretlab’s monitor mount. We’ve found that it stays in place for the most part, but it is easy to knock loose around the clamp mount for the monitors as it’s not as magnetic as the rest of the desk.

Controls

The Secretlab Magnus Pro’s control panel is yet another feature that sets it apart from other height-adjustable desks.

Instead of a separate box hanging off the bottom of the desk, Secretlab integrated the touch-controls into the edge of the desk, complete with a display, manual adjustments, three presets, and an on-off switch.

Not only does the switch turn off the controller’s backlight, but it also works to prevent accidental adjustments when moving around in your setup.

Our control unit was faulty when we first received the Magnus Pro for review, but the company was quick to work with us to replace the faulty part, again, this was due to it being a pre-production sample, rather than what you’d usually get in a retail purchase.

Magnus Pro desk accessories

Monitor Mounts

Built specifically for the Magnus line of desks, the clamping mount of Secretlab’s monitor mounts is built with plenty of clearance for the desk’s infamous cable management tray, and they’re available in both dual and single options.

The mounts aren’t exactly cheap, coming in at $149 for the single and $249 for the dual monitor setup. Both are rated for 34″ monitors with a weight limit of 17 lbs per arm, which is less than we’d like to see with the increased popularity of bigger ultra wides.

They’re well-designed and super easy to set up with your favorite monitor layout. The quick-release VESA mount latches are plastic, which might worry those with a heavier monitor.

MAGRGB lighting system

Created in partnership with Nanoleaf, Secretlab’s MAGRGB light strip is beautifully diffused and sits near perfectly under the back lip of the Magnus Pro.

That is unless you’re using one of the company’s new monitor mounts, as we’ve found it significantly harder to keep the strip attached with the monitor mount clamped to the desk.

Connecting the strip to your phone is effortless once you download the Nanoleaf app, and it also comes with an in-line remote that sticks to the side of your desk.

We hope to see Secretlab and Nanoleaf come out with a different design sooner than later, perhaps in the form of shorter strips that can be fit around the accessories commonly added by streamers and content creators.

Premium PC mount

With a height-adjustable desk, users either have to invest in longer cables for their PC or place it on top of the desk. Luckily, Secretlab has come to the rescue with an under-desk mount that holds your computer against one of the legs of the desk with ease.

We’re absolutely enthralled with the build quality, being solid metal with proper padding to make sure your expensive rig doesn’t get scratched.

It holds computers up to 33 lbs, is between 14 and 21.5 inches tall, and is 6.7 to 11.8 inches wide.

We had no issues fitting our Corsair 4000D Airflow in the mount, with plenty of room for something bigger. It’s definitely secure, too, thanks to the locking mechanism.

Should you buy it?

The Secretlab Magnus Pro height adjustable desk is, unfortunately, difficult to fully recommend.

Our biggest issue so far has been the various mechanical problems with the desk. While the majority of the issues stemmed from the unit that we received which was a pre-production model of the final retail product, we can only really review what was put in front of us.

The issues we faced, paired with its difficult-to-swallow $799 starting price tag and limited compatibility with non-Secretlab accessories, make for a rather disappointing experience. Due to the depth of the cable management tray on the back of the desk, clamp-style monitor or microphone mounts are significantly harder to secure.

There’s also no room on the sides due to structure supports taking up too much space, leaving just the front left of the desk due to the height controls on the right side. This means users are forced to place more on the top of the desk, which we’ve found runs out of space rather quickly.

They do offer a 10-inch larger option with the Magnus Pro XL at a $150 price increase, but anyone that uses the desk daily is going to have the same issue with running out of space.

It’s a beautiful, really well-built option for users that don’t have a ton of accessories, but anyone looking for a height-adjustable desk should also consider options like the Flexispot Pro Plus as it’s cheaper, more customizable, and easier to mount various accessories on.

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