Standing desks are becoming more and more the norm, especially as so many of us are looking to upgrade our home setups for work. While we often associate these with work-life, many gamers upgrade their setups to provide more flexibility during long gaming sessions.
While it’s easy to assume that all desks are the same, many companies go the extra mile. Cougar’s Work brand has launched its Royal line of electric standing desks, looking to bring a premium feel and build quality.
Specifications
- Desk Dimensions: 59 x 31 x 1 inches (W x D x Thickness)
- Height Range: 28 - 48 inches (with desktop attached)
- Desk Frame: Twin-leg, dual motor system with high-quality steel frame
- Desktop material: Premium MDF Board, offered in White or Black, built-in power strip
- Keypad: 3-digit display, 4-memory buttons with height lever
- Travel Speed: 1.57 in/sec
- Lifting capacity: 220lbs
- Noise Level: ?50 decibels during motion
- Price: $599 on Amazon
Cougar Royal 150 Standing Desk Impressions
The Cougar Royal 150 is a massive desk, seeing the workable area range to five feet wide and almost three feet deep. It’s also a heavy desk, with the entire assembly weighing over 100 lbs. This is a good thing, though, as the desk feels premium. Nothing feels cheap, which can often be an issue with expensive standing desks.
The desk surface is smooth with an angled edge where your arms might rest, ensuring no sharp corners are digging into your forearms if you’re like me and tend to rest them on the desk while working. The black matte MDF board the desk surface is made from feels good when gliding a mouse across, making me wonder if I would need to lay down my Goliathus desk mat for my mouse. Short answer, yes, though it depended on the mouse itself.
There was no need when using my Logitech G502 mouse, though Apple’s Magic Mouse did struggle to glide as effortlessly. Since this desk is primarily being used as a workstation, the Apple mouse forced the issue.
The desk itself comes equipped with a cable grommet on the left hand side to help get pesky cables off the desk surface. However, there are two power outlet plugs on the right-hand side should you need easy access to plug in a charger or an extra accessory.
The underside of the desk comes with two cable baskets, with one of the baskets housing a power strip. This was huge as it made setting up my PC, monitor, and more on the desk a breeze. I was able to simply route and hide all the cables underneath and ensure that I didn’t have a mess of wires hanging from the desk itself to the wall behind it - just the single power strip cable.
As someone with many accessories for work, from two Elgato Key Air lights, audio equipment, multiple monitors, and more, this was a lifesaver. Compared to my Autonomous AI desk, which does have some cable management, it was a breath of fresh air to have the included power strip. Even with the cables managed under the Autonomous, I still have many having to travel down to the floor. It is a hassle - and a concern when using some of the exercise equipment I have, such as a desk treadmill and bike.
The actual desk is powered by two motors, one on each leg, to ensure smooth height adjustment. Thankfully, the frame itself is made from high-quality steel, which is necessary to hold the weight of the desk.
To actuate the motors a small keypad is set under the right corner of the desk. It’s pretty plain looking: four buttons, a small LCD screen and a small lever get your desk moving. The buttons can be set to your preferred heights, and the lever moves the desk up and down based on your need.
One issue I have is that while I do like the simplistic look of the keypad - it fits the look of the desk overall - I do wish Cougar had made a separate memory button to make it a bit easier to save presets.
To store a preferred height, you’ll need to hold down the button as well as the lever in the up position for three seconds. It’s not terribly complicated, but compared to my Autonomous which has a separate button for storing memory settings, it’s a bit more convoluted than it could be.
The desk’s movement is very smooth, however, and thankfully extremely quiet. I’ve tested some desks that sounded like jet engines roaring when I moved them up and down, but the Cougar Royal 150 is thankfully on the whole opposite end of the noise spectrum.
The Royal 150 also has a rather cool feature where it can detect if the desk will hit something while traveling up or down. This prevents the desk from, say, crashing into a poorly placed shelf on the wall or even a person who might be underneath when it starts its descent, a rather cool safety feature.
However, as much as I adore how quiet the desk is, as well as how smoothly it moves, it is annoying that I’m oftentimes having to “wake up” the desk to use it each time. There is a delay when moving the lever and it actually working. Pressing a button to adjust the height also requires a second tap of that button if you haven’t moved the desk in a while.
These are slight annoyances, but I’ve gotten so used to my Autonomous desk. When I press a key, I can simply walk away, knowing that when I come back it’ll be where I need for the next task. There is a slight delay when moving that desk as well, but when using the memory keys it doesn’t require more than one input to get going. This input lag does take a little getting used to, but it’s not something that is insurmountable, thankfully.
Conclusion
The Cougar Royal 150 Standing Desk is a beast. It’s big and heavy - yet it’s also silent and graceful. The desk moves up and down with ease, assuming you’ve woken it up first. I also cannot overstate how much the angled section at the front of the desk helps in comfort. Not having an edge cut into my forearms the last week has been magical.
For a workstation, the Royal 150 is perfect, if not a little expensive for many consumers. As home workstations become more and more commonplace, there are a lot of different options out there for consumers to get the right desk for their needs. If you’re someone who balances a ton on their desk, or just needs all of the space to work like I do, this is a fantastic offering. But it is expensive overall, which could put some off.
Thankfully, for that price, you’re getting a desk that feels like it will last. Nothing about this desk feels cheap. I don’t worry that after a few months this will start to break down thanks to the quality materials being used in its construction. And, if you are getting this for a shared office, the fact that the desk can come with modesty panels to go around the bottom of the desk itself is a huge addition.
All in all, the Cougar Royal 150 Standing Desk is a magnificent piece of kit. It’s sturdy, it moves effortlessly and quietly, and is comfortable to both work and game at for long periods of time. While there are some slight annoyances from the fact it takes a minute for the desk to wake up, as well as the convoluted way to set up preset heights, once you get used to those it’s not a big deal.
It is expensive, meaning that this desk might be out of the price range for some who are looking to upgrade their home office set up. However, if this is a desk you’re able to afford, you aren’t going to be disappointed in the end result.
