With work from home taking the world by storm this year, standing desks are in greater demand than ever before. You don’t have to spend big to get a great desk, however. Today, I’m looking at the Comhar All-in-One Standing Desk from Flexispot. Coming in at only $429, it features incredibly fast assembly, a tempered glass top, built-in storage, and even USB Type-C charging. Put another way, this might just be the best value standing desk on the market currently, so let’s dive in and take a closer look.
Specifications
- Current Price: $429 (Flexispot)
- Model: EG8
- Glass top thickness: 0.2"
- Total glass top thickness with drawer: 1.7"
- Lifting Mechanism: Motor
- No. of Leg Stage: 2-stage
- Height Range: 28.3" - 47.6"
- Lift Speed: 1"/sec
- Memory Presets: Yes
- Weight Capacity: 110 lbs
- Input Voltage: 100 - 240V
- Desktop Size: 48"(W) x 24"(D)
- Noise Level: Under 50 dBs
- Actuator: Actuator is certified and supplied by Loctek Linear Motion.
- Warranty: 5 year for the frame, motor and other mechanisms, and 2 year for the controller and switch, electronics
If you’ve considered buying a standing desk, you’ve probably already realized how confusing it can be. What’s the real difference between a desk that’s $350 and another that’s $700, and what’s the difference between the two $350 desks whose pictures look almost exactly the same? If you can’t see or try the desks yourself, answering those questions is harder than it should be.
In my journey as Hardware Editor on this site, I’ve had the privilege of trying out many different kinds of standing desks, everything from the affordable Flexispot E2 (now $299) to high-end $1400 solid wood desktops. The differences largely lie in assembly and materials. A desk that takes you 10 minutes to assemble is rare. A desk that is made to be disassembled is rarer still. Both will cost you hundreds of dollars up front.
Until now.
The Flexispot Comhar is genuinely one of the most exciting standing desks on the market today because it is one of the best value standing desks money can buy. If you want a great desk for less than $500, this is it — with a couple caveats we’ll get to soon. But, on it’s own, this desk is incredibly fast and easy to put together, is rock solid, has built in storage, built-in charging ports, a tempered glass top, and can actually be disassembled and put back together again without drilling new pilot holes. It is a tremendous step forward for Flexispot and exactly the kind of affordable standing desk the work from home and gaming industries need more of.
When the Comhar arrived on my door, I was initially concerned because it had sustained some damage in shipping. The outer cardboard had a nice gouge indicating it had been slammed in transit; not a good sign for a desk with a glass top. The desk was safe and sound inside, protected with cardboard and foam bracing.
Unboxing everything, I was shocked to find that it comes mostly pre-assembled. The entire bottom frame, with the exception of the feet, was already built. The actual tabletop is a metal frame that the tempered glass top is secured to, so that was already built. Therefore, actually building the desk really only involved screwing on the legs and feet and plugging in the power cord and height adjustment box. The entire process, from taking it out of the box to having it built only took 10 minutes with a short Discord break in the middle. I did use a drill, but even with the included screwdriver, shouldn’t take much more.
Compare this to a normal standing desk, which typically arrives in two boxes. There, you have to attach a metal guide to the bottom of the MDF tabletop, hopefully with pre-drilled pilot holes. Then, you have to build the entire leg section separately, and attach it to the frame. And we can forget the process of adjusting the width of the legs, locking the screws, and making sure it’s solid. Then you can move onto attaching the power box and plugging everything in. Then you can cable manage… this process can easily take an hour or more.
By contrast, the Comhar rivals the iMovR ZipDesk in speed. I do believe the iMovR has the faster, more novel solution overall, but the fact that these desks are even competitive speaks very highly of the Comhar. The ZipDesk was sold almost entirely on the basis of assembly time and one other factor: the ability to be disassembled and rebuilt.
The Comhar does this too. While most desks in this price range use pilot holes drilled directly into the MDF and are really only good for one build (the threads are often shot after the first build), this desk uses threaded metal inserts. You could build this desk and take it apart without fear of needing to drill new pilot holes and throw off the balance of the desk.
Once it’s actually built, you can see just how gorgeous the glass tabletop is. The desk is available in either black or white. I chose black and love the elegant sleekness of it. Tempered glass isn’t going to be for everyone, however. It shows fingerprints something terrible and needs to be cleaned often to maintain that nice look. It shouldn’t scratch easily but if you’re like me and keep paper clips on your desk, you’ll want to take care. I can’t speak for the white color, but my optical mouse wouldn’t work at al on this desktop, so I had to pick up a mouse pad.
The desktop is quite a bit thicker than the 1-inch thickness you typically find on affordable standing desks. In total, it’s 1.7-inches with the glass coming in at 0.2-inches thick. This is to accommodate the new fully incorporated design. The control pad, pictured above, no longer hangs down like it did on the E2. Instead, it’s worked right into the frame and is a part of the desk proper. The pad is able to store up to four height settings simply by holding your finger on the number until it beeps. Height is adjusted with the arrows and described with an LED readout on the screen.
This pad also features three charging ports, including a USB Type-C. Flexispot doesn’t specify the voltage on these, but they’re able to kick my Samsung Note 20 Ultra into Fast Charging Mode, which surprised me. I only wish these could be used for data too but it’s only power on this model.
The desk also features a storage drawer. It’s roughly 26x12x1.5 inches, so is a good fit for usual desk accessories like post-its, pens, cables, and the like. It won’t work for storing a keyboard unless it’s low profile, but I found it to be a great fit for my work life.
So far, you might be thinking that many of these features seem fairly basic. And perhaps they should be, but the reality is they’re not. A standing desk with an included drawer and a design that supports repeat assembly are still fairly uncommon, though appears to finally be coming to the fore. Built-in charging ports, easy assembly… these are things we should be able to expect without spending $700+ on a desk. Flexispot is one of the few companies actually offering them at this price and deserves major kudos for that.
When it comes to its function as a standing desk, I’m happy to say that it works very well. It rises and descends quietly and is incredibly stable thanks to the included cross bar (which is usually a “commercial frame” upsell for $70+ from other brands). It has an expansive range of 28.3" - 47.6", so could work for a child’s work desk one minute and a tall adult’s standing solution the next. It’s steady enough to have a full glass of water on its surface while it moves. It also features collision detection to keep anyone from being hurt should they be under it while it descends.
So what’s the catch? To get these features at this price, there are some trade-offs. The biggest is that this desk is fairly compact at 48x24 inches. Many in this price range come in at 30x60, so you’re losing some space. Second, you’ll need to come up with your own cable management solution. There are no grommets built into the desk, so you’re draping your cords off the back, which can really get messy quick. Since it uses a metal frame, you’ll need to use a cable spine or a runner with 3M adhesive. This, I don’t think is that big of a deal given the cost of the desk. A $10 runner is small beans.
The other sacrifice is in the actuators that control the lift of the legs. This unit has less power than even some of Flexispot’s cheaper standing desks and is rated for only 110 lbs of total lift. This is obviously more than enough for most normal use cases, but you won’t be able to impress your friends by sitting on it and treating it like your own personal elevator. I admit to being concerned about the life of this motor, but Flexispot includes an impressive 5-year warranty should it ever have a problem.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I’m extremely impressed with the Flexispot Comhar. It offers features that most other big brand companies are still charging big premiums for. You’ll sacrifice a bit of desk space for that lower cost, but this is absolutely the best value standing desk I’ve used and is an easy recommendation to make.
