I would like to thank FlexiSpot for supplying the sample.


FlexiSpot focuses on workstation, gaming, and standing desks, alongside all kinds of accessories in that space. With their wide range of products and variety of tabletop materials as well as sizes, the site offers plenty to choose from. As working from home has to a certain extend become a permanent fixture for a lot of us, having both a solid and healthy working environment within our own four walls has also become rather relevant. FlexiSpot has sent us their EQ3 desk with the 48" bamboo table top to look at.

Unboxing and A Closer Look

As you can mostly mix and match feet with tabletops, these two elements ship separately. We also received a cable-routing "snake" which allows for clean looks regardless of the position of the desk. FlexiSpot operates online shops for multiple countries, including the US and Canada, which are a little detached from each other. Interestingly enough, the feet mention their US site, while the tabletop is branded with the Canadian URL. The feet and frame of the EQ3 come in a compact box that has been packed extremely well, leaving nearly no unnecessary room, which also makes it quite heavy for its size.


Inside is another, smaller cardboard box with a few additional parts, the power supply, and all required screws for assembly. These are named alphabetically, so you know in which order to use them while going through the steps in the assembly manual. We received the white feet and frame, but the EQ3 also comes in silver or black, although availability may differ between the US and Canadian shops. The metal parts have an excellent, thick and glossy paint job with pre-applied rubber grommets.


An IKEA-style manual that is very easy to understand has been included. It will lead you through the steps and employs the same alphabetical labeling for each type of screw. The cable snake comes in three parts, which you may connect for up to 55" worth of height, with a weighted end that rests on the floor. You may disconnect individual pieces to make it fit your height requirements.


The EQ3 comes with a controller with manual up/down functionality, which moves the tabletop in the direction you hold pressed. Above that are four additional buttons to store custom height placements. The first two are labeled as standing and sitting, while spots 3 and 4 are more generically branded. Having four settings means this desk can easily be used by two people in a household, with each user having their own pair of sitting and standing heights. An Ethernet-style connector on a fairly long black cable is used to interface with the power supply.


The power supply can provide 300 watts with a duty cycle of two minutes every 20 minutes. That may not sound like much, but means you could probably move the desk up and down 20 times continuously, which nobody will ever do. The PSU has a classic power port and three plugs, two of which look like PCIe power leads. The entire unit is meant to be mounted to the underside of the table top.


The FlexiSpot EQ3 is a dual-motor desk, which means each leg has its own drive. The total load capacity for the assembled desk is a whooping 275 lb. The legs have a vertical range of 23.6–49.2". Each motor is also rated for the same duty cycle of two minutes every 20 minutes as the power supply, and each has a white 6-pin connector.


Unpacking the board is best done on the floor by simply opening the cardboard up. FlexiSpot does an excellent job protecting the desk on all sides, so shipping should be no problem. You may simply remove the corner pieces and foam lining to reveal the underside of the desk for easy assembly, as the user-facing side rests on additional foam sheets. Thus, you won't have to worry about damaging it during assembly.


FlexiSpot includes the basic mounting holes for the frame legs on the left and right edges, as well as mounting holes for the controller interface on the edge facing the user. You may choose to place the controller towards the left or right as there are pre-drilled holes on both ends.

Assembly

Assembly is quite similar to any traditional assemble-at-home furniture product and focuses on the frame first. The initial step is to prepare the metal bars and end pieces so that you may install the two legs with the drives on each of these. The last step is to install the actual feet with four screws each. At this point, you are essentially ready to take these two contraptions and marry them to the table.


If you look closely, the two prepared halves are joint by a single metal square tube in the center, of which only an inch or so is visible. While the bamboo top is 48" wide, the EQ3 desk supports much wider tabletops as well. For those scenarios, that center tube acts as a connecting piece to slide the feet apart on. Screwing everything down was quite easy, and thanks to the pre-drilled holes, the frame was perfectly placed without requiring much planning.

For the power supply, however, there are no pre-drilled holes. This makes sense as depending on the frame you opt to use with the tabletop, each PSU will be different. We attached the PSU close enough to one of the legs, with a bit of room for the power cable to attach on one side. The initial cable mess is easily tamed with zip ties wrapped around that center metal piece. Lastly, you may also add something like a power bar to this setup using the same method. Just as we like a clean interior in a case, cable management is important here as well.

Use

The last step is to flip the desk over. At this point, you may start populating your new workspace and wiring cables as you wish in the same fashion as the initial electrical parts to keep things from view. The bamboo table top not only feels great, but its design fits nicely into a brighter space with lots of white elements.


The control interface remains off unless you press any button. As soon as you do, the white backlight turns on, so you may easily select the right button even in a dark environment. The FlexiSpot EQ3 also includes a display to show you at what height in inches your desk is set, which is a nice touch. That number updates in real time, as the desk motors extend or contract the legs. Saving your preferred setting is easy too, as you simply press M and then one of the four buttons to store the current height the FlexiSpot EQ3 is set to.

The dual-motors of the desk wind up nicely and smoothly as soon as you trigger a height adjustment. Thus, going from sitting to standing or vise versa never startles and is only accompanied by the gentle winding up noise of the motors.


I was able to quickly set and find my preferred heights. As you can see, even in the standing position, you cannot see any cables underneath, and trust me, it is quite the jungle under there. There is only that bulky PSU for the HDMI 2.0 KVM switch and a loose cable to use for charging and using the wireless mouse. Besides that, all cables from the notebook, monitor, USB devices, and gaming PC are tucked away. The cable snake works extremely well and can hold a lot more wires than the two leads in this setup. That said, I separated the notebook power from the rest of the setup for portability.

Conclusion

FlexiSpot offers a wide variety of desks, standing desk modules for traditional work spaces, and accessories to more efficiently organize your desk space. The simplest electric, height adjustable, single-motor, 42" wide variants start at around $200–300 depending on whether there is a sale, and you can upgrade to a larger desk space of up to 55" in various sizes for a small premium. That is rather affordable considering you get an extremely sturdy desk alongside the ability to easily adjust its height. The dual-motor units with custom settings and automatic single-button adjustments demand a price of around $350–500, which is also the bracket in which the FlexiSpot EQ3 with its bamboo tabletop falls. That said, their highest-end models will go for a little bit more as well.

Pricing across the entire range feels rather competitive considering what classic, sturdy desks meant to last you years tend to go for in retail. Yes, you do sacrifice the storage those provide and may be a bit more restricted in shape, but the benefits of a standing desk far outweigh those aspects, and in that segment, FlexiSpot has plenty to offer.