After A Year With The Secretlab Magnus Pro Xl, Here's My Honest Review

the secret lab Magnus desk that I did a video on a while ago was an awesome desk that just didn't fit my needs at the time the desk that I've been using has been a huge sit stand desk and I mean I stream I edit videos I game at the desk so I have a lot of stuff going on lots of cables lots of monitors lots of stuff the magnets just didn't seem capable of handling all of my cables and peripherals even though I had some really cool features that I liked a lot well enter the secret lab Magnus Pro they basically filled in all of the gaps everything that I felt was missing is here so I decided to switch to this desk and see if it was better or worse than my previous one I've been using it for a while now this video has taken me kind of a long time I've been putting it off a bit but I think that I've got a pretty good idea of what I like and dislike so if you're considering this desk this video should help you decide my previous desk was an uplift standing desk and I've had it for a couple of years I've really enjoyed the desk but I've had to replace each of the legs because the motors died at some point which ended up causing the desk to lower on its own own when left in a race position I come back to be kind of crooked they cover The Replacements under warranty and they were very fast about it but obviously I would have much preferred that the likes just didn't die on me and I didn't have to go through that so the warranty on the secret lab desk is five years but uplift has a crazy long like 15-year warranty I it's that's a long time that's a long time for a desk the secret lab Magnus Pro comes in two different sizes I got the larger of the two it's 70 inches wide compared to my current debt or my previous desk which was 72 inches so I'm losing an inch on each side making this switch but despite the dust being just slightly narrower I don't actually see this as a huge problem because the outer edges of my desk usually just end up as free space to put stuff that I should actually put away I I know myself I just shouldn't have so much free disk space maybe that's I don't know I have issues another reason that I didn't really miss the one inch on either side is because of how I have my monitor placed it's kind of low and it makes it an awkward place to put stuff anyway so maybe I'm just coping because it's a little bit smaller and I want to feel good about it but the desk is still wide enough to not feel cramped and it has enough space to mount all of the stuff that I need to mount both of these desks the uplift and secret lab are just expensive but I kind of classify them in a more premium kind of higher end desk there are still some that are more expensive but there are cheaper options out there the uplift desk was around a thousand dollars after all of the options and add-ons and the secret lab desk is 949 for the XL and 7.99 for the smaller size which is 59 inches wide the absolute cheapest standing desk that you can get from uplift is 599 dollars which would get you a desk that's 42 inches wide a big difference in the pricing is what you choose as the actual desktop material for an uplift s the basic materials are included in the price but the fancier materials add to the price who would have figured with secret lab the desk is all metal and that actually pays a part in the accessories for the desk which I'm going to cover later there are no wood options with the secret lab Magnus so you just have metal assembly of the uplift wasn't a bad experience but it wasn't a good one either I don't have footage of it because I made it a long time ago but you basically assemble the legs and then attach the tops to the desktop if I remember correctly some of the holes required that I actually drilled into the desk and some were already there it was just a standard No Frills assembly just a standard desk assembly at this point I've opened and assembled a lot of secret lab products and I've got to say that the experience of unboxing and building their products is among the nicest of any brand I've ever dealt with their packaging is always sleek and clean and no Styrofoam peanuts or styrofoam at all which is a huge deal for me I hate dealing with styrofoam it just ends up crumbling and getting everywhere and it's like part of the process is vacuuming up afterwards and then it sticks to the plastic or the metal and I absolutely hate dealing with styrofoam I hate it secret lab is a premium brand and when you open their products you definitely feel like you're opening a premium product their assembly continues to be the easiest and most straightforward process with clearly labeled pieces Easy instructions and parts that go together extremely well nothing feels like I have to force it in there or it's just it's not a difficult process the desk is heavy as hell though so two people is recommended I I almost died getting it down the stairs true is dangerous it was scary anyway I started switching over to the new desk and let me say I already knew that I had a lot of cables but when I took everything apart that's when it really hit me I have a lot of cables the cable management that I use with the uplift desk was basically this big cloth panel that hangs from the back of the desk and has a velcro cover so you just throw all the cables in there and close it up it's a very easy method but it has a lot of drawbacks if you have a lot of cables it starts to get really heavy and the velcro closures just struggles to stay attached aside from this it just looks kind of meh like it's just doesn't have that clean Sleek look it looks like you just have a big black panel at the back of your desk it just isn't particularly nice looking the Magnus Pro is designed with cable management as a priority the desk has a built-in tray with a door on top the tray is deep enough to shove a ton of cables in there and you could also fit a power strip in there as well I use an in interrupt an uninterruptible power supply just gonna say UPS so I I just route all of my power cables out of the tray and into the UPS because of this I don't actually use the outlet that's built into the desk which is a super cool feature but let's be honest most of you should probably be using a UPS protect your stuff man it is expensive and you don't want it to blow up and uh power strip just isn't enough if you didn't have a lot of stuff cool feature I'm glad it's there but be safe in addition to the tray you can also purchase their Cable Management bundle which comes with velcro ties and cable sheets which you use to cover and Route the cables along the back of the leg and some cable anchors which you can use if you want to temporarily route a cable like a phone charger or something that way it doesn't just fall off the side of your desk it just sticks there with magnets it's cool there's a lot of magnets with this desk with all of these tools I was able to manage everything really well and the finished product looked way way cleaner than my previous desk the underside of my desk it's pretty it's pretty nice it looks amazing the cable management tray is a really cool feature but because of the built-in tray mounting things to the back of the desk can be a little bit difficult so it's nice that secret lab developed their own monitor arms that work with the desk again the packaging of these arms was premium and the assembly was super easy I've assembled a bunch of monitor arms from different brands and this was the easiest amongst all of the ones that I've put together mounting it to the desk is done from the top the tray system means that if you have to tighten it from the bottom that I like most mounts then you don't have a ton of space to do that so it's possible as you can see with the Elgato mounts that I have installed but it was a bit of a pain in the ass another thing that I really liked was the mounting plate for the monitor you mount it to the vase amount on there on your monitor and then you snap it into the arm usually it's the other way around I usually had to bolt the arm to the monitor which can be a little cumbersome because you're trying to you bolt it and you have this big heavy arm sticking off and then you place it in there whereas this you just bolt it to the Monitor and then it's super easy this method does make for easy installation or removal once your monitor is mounted the arms have some magnetic covers to conceal your cables it was a bit annoying with larger cables but it's not impossible and the finished product looks really nice now that being said there is one big thing that I dislike about them and this might be a Make It or Break It for some people on other monitor arms you usually have a pole mounted to the desk and then the arm mounts to that pole the secret lab arms connect directly to the Mount so it's the mount on the table arm whereas normally like that now with the pole you have more adjustability to raise the entire arm with the secret lab design you have less vertical adjustability and at its highest I felt like I had just just wanted a little bit more it's high enough to use my monitors ergonomically and comfortably but it did force me to change some things about my desk setup because I didn't have as much space underneath it anymore now overall I do like the arms and they complement the design and Aesthetics of the desk but I would just like to see them come up with a solution to the lack of height adjustment the desk the adaptions may be limited to just metal as opposed to Wood but they do offer a bunch of different desk mats to suit different Aesthetics and styles these aren't just regular mats either they perfectly fit the entire surface of the desk and they're entirely magnetic which was surprising the first time I saw it I still can't quite get used to it the whole damn thing is just one big thin magnet they suggest this method of installation to roll it out perfectly but I was unable to do it correctly like the first second and third try I ended up spending more time than I'd like to admit adjusting this and moving it to be placed correctly it's possible that I am just bad at this but it's also possible that it's just not as easy to do as it should be now I like the idea of being able to change out the look of your desk with these different mats but I'm going to be completely honest with you that after setting everything up and mounting things to the desk and all that there's absolute zero percent chance that I am going to remove it just to change the the magnetic desk mat it's just not happening as way too much work for me I would prefer to just swap out different custom mouse pads on top of the install mat which is a little bit of a bummer because I'm not super crazy about the red stitching I would prefer just black stitching but that is the secret lab theme they offer different ones so I would just say get the one that you want from the get-go because after you mount stuff you're not going to want to take it all off instead like I said I am just going to be using different custom desk mats that I have purchased I have a bunch of them and they really help to change out the look of my desk when I want to switch it up speaking of desk mats that brings me to something else that I'm not super happy about with this desk it is a little bit shallower so it doesn't have as much depth it's one inch shorter on either side a little bit shallower so one that doesn't give me as much space to fully support my arms which is the more ergonomic way to have your desk set up but also the desk mats that I'm using which is kind of like the standard over large desk mat size it just barely fit on there it went right up to the little shelf that I have on my desk now I wouldn't have this problem if I didn't use the Shelf then I would have plenty of space but the I like the Shelf I like using it so I wanted to make it work and I was able to make it work but it's something to keep in mind depending on how deep the desk is that you have now secret lab offers a few more accessories for the desk such as the magnetic headphone holder that snaps to the bottom of the desk and I absolutely love this thing I I recommend it 100 they also have an RGB strip made by nanoleaf this has some basic smart home functionality and installs magnetically into the tray it's bright and easy to install and I prefer it to my previous Philips hue light strip that I just had stuck to the back of the desk they also offer a PC Mount which I don't have but it looks pretty awesome I just I don't have it so I can't tell you if it's worth it with everything swapped over cable managed and tweaked to my liking there are a few things that I like and dislike on my previous desk I purchased a small drawer that mounts to the bottom of the desk I love having a place to store small items I want nearby and it helps reduce clutter if I wanted to do this with a Magnus I'd have to drill into metal and I'd have to be careful not to go all the way through since the desk is really thin I'd like to see them develop some sort of storage solution for these desks now I do still have the drawer from The Grove made shelf that I mentioned earlier so I've been using that in the in the meantime but I really do miss just having something I can dump stuff into I was asked by a friend to compare the desk wobble to my uplift desk and both desks have a significant amount of wobble when at the full standing height I think that this is just unavoidable with a desk that is only on two legs if this is a big concern for you I'd recommend a standing desk with four legs but once you get to four legs they get crazy expensive at lower Heights both desks felt Rock Solid no wobble at all the raising and lowering of each desk is similar but the uplift is noticeably louder [Music] the controls on the Magnus Pro look really nice with how seamless they are but they do have less available presets for me that's not really a big deal I need like two maybe three I have one at the height that I use it I have my standing height and then I have the lowest height possible so after it's all said and done which do I prefer it's this desk it's the Magnus Pro in my opinion the finished setup looks cleaner and I love all of the features and accessories that this desk has if I had a simpler setup or if I wanted a desk that was just for regular use and not gaming then the Magnus Pro or regular would probably be Overkill it's an expensive desk and I don't think that you should stretch the the your dollar just to to get this desk I definitely think that it fits a gamer aesthetic without being too try hard I've seen a lot of gamer desk and they just look tacky most the time this has the functionality of a well-made sits to sit tube a well-made sit to stand desk but it provides solutions to things that Gamers tend to prioritize like cable management peripheral storage and Aesthetics it's not perfect but neither was my uplift it feels less like I lost overall functionality and more like I traded some problems for different problems with the overall experience being slightly better they're both fine options I like both of them but for my purposes I prefer the Magnus and if you have a similar use case to me then I think you'd also prefer it there's a link in the description if you want to check it or anything else I mentioned in this video out so peace I guess what bothers me is when you have people who try to justify it or to excuse it okay he went

Channel: Fracno

Views: 192,978

Keywords: fracno, franco, gaming setup 2023, desk setup work from home, best gaming desktop 2023, secretlab magnus pro, secretlab magnus pro metal desk, secretlab magnus pro review, secret lab desk, secretlab magnus pro desk, magnus pro desk, secretlab desk, secret lab magnus pro desk, secretlab magnus pro desk review, secretlab metal desk, magnus pro desk review, secret lab magnus, desk setup 2023, standing desk gaming setup, standing desk setup, standing desk for gaming

Id: 7_T1L2c5C6k

Length: 14min 52sec (892 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 04 2023