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Desk and Chair

Before starting my first full time junior role as a Cyber Security Consultant in September (go me!), my company offered to pay for a home office set-up to ensure my long-term comfort.

So I now have a Corsair TC200 ‘gaming’ chair and a GoStand Manual S2 Sit-Stand desk. Here are my thoughts on them.

Chair

Price: £350, Colour: Grey, Material: Fabric

Pros

  1. Very adjustable, especially the armrests.
  2. Leans all the way back (but I don’t expect to ever use it).
  3. Ease of assembly, done in 15 minutes, however the QR code on the box for the digital manual was a deadlink.

Cons

  1. Please give me a physical paper manual next time.
  2. I am comfortably below the recommended user height maximum, and yet the headrest is not really comfortable, and the neck pillow is both too thick and rests nowhere near my neck.
  3. Wheels don’t roll smoothly, but I don’t move around much anyway.

Desk

Price: £300, Frame Colour: Grey, Desktop Colour: Alaska

Pros

  1. Incredibly solid desk, especially the top, which looks great.
  2. Well documented instruction manual, took 90 minutes, can be done solo.
  3. Pre-drilling holes for £10 extra means no power tools required

Cons

  1. Desk goes up slightly short of what I wanted, max height is 115cm (but I was aware of this before I ordered).
  2. Handle turning is a bit clunky, but fortunately I don’t have to be excessively gentle.

All in all, I’m very happy with both and it feels good to have the option of sitting or standing. I like standing for reading and writing blog posts, and sitting, well whenever I feel like it. While it does take about a minute and a half of cranking to switch between the two, I don’t think a non-manual desk would’ve provided much benefit for the price increase, plus it would’ve needed a plug socket which I don’t have spare at the moment (the concept of extension leads terrify me). I can’t fit the whole of the chair beneath the desk when standing, but instead I can tilt the seat back and fit 90% of its profile under the area of the desktop.