Sitting at an office desk all day can have negative effects on your health especially if you’re using an old and uncomfortable office chair. For this reason, many people have turned to standing desks which allow you to easily adjust your desk from a seated position to a standing one with the touch of a button if they’re electric or with the pull of a lever if you’re using a manual standing desk.
While a standing desk gives you more flexibility throughout your workday, the Mobile Think Desk from Juniper Office also includes casters. With wheels at the base of your desk, you can roll it around a large office or easily reposition your home workspace without having to ask a friend to help you move it.
Today we’ll be taking a closer look at the design, build quality, assembly process, features and usability of the Mobile Think Desk to help you decide if it’s the right upgrade for your work from home setup or even to outfit an entire office so that all of your employees can take advantage of the health benefits offered by using a standing desk.
Pricing and availability
Juniper sells two versions of this electric standing desk on its site with the first being the Think Desk which starts at $644 and the second being the Mobile Think Desk starting at $859.
Regardless of which Think Desk you choose, there are a number of size configurations available starting at 24in wide x 48in long and going all the way up to 30in by 72in. When it comes to the surface finish you can pick between a dark brown shadow elm, electric white, sonic maple and white oak while the legs and frame are available in black, grey and white.
Juniper also sells an optional desktop power module for $78 to add outlets to the top of the Think Desk as well as a cable tray for $84 and a personal storage drawer for $141 which both mount under the desk.
It’s worth noting that Juniper offers bulk discounts for businesses looking to furnish multiple offices or locations but you will need to contact the company directly for a quote. From its site, we can see that a number of large businesses including PepsiCo, GameStop and RE/MAX as well as government and non-profit organizations such as the YMCA, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Veterans Affairs have all turned to Juniper to outfit their offices.
Design
The Juniper Mobile Think Desk features a 1in thick desktop made of thermo-fused melamine with a 3mm thick PVC edgeband to protect the edges of the desk during day to day use. There are also two 2in diameter grommets on either side of the desk which allow you to discreetly run cables. While the Mobile Think Desk has a maximum load capacity of 152lbs (68.9kg), the Think Desk has a load capacity of 220lbs (99.7kg).
A control panel on the right underside of the desk allows you to lower the desk to 31.5in or raise it to a maximum height of 49in. There are four preset buttons available that allow you to store your preferred sitting and standing heights. The control panel also features touch capacitive buttons that vibrate when pressed.
A metal frame runs across the rear underside of the desk and holds the control box as well as the L-shaped legs on either side. Both legs have their own motors which plug into the control box and when in operation, the desk’s noise level stays under 58 dB.
Unlike the Think Desk, the Mobile Think Desk includes four large 3in locking casters. The casters attach to the legs using four bolts and add an extra 3.4in to the desk’s overall height.
Juniper also sells an optional cable tray that secures to the rear of the desk and has a minimum width of 25in and a maximum width of 42in.
However, while the tray is long enough to hold multiple power strips, it’s only 2.96in in height which means that you will have to install them vertically instead of horizontally. It may also be difficult to store a monitor’s power brick due to these size limitations.
Setup
The Mobile Think Desk sent to TechRadar Pro for review arrived in four boxes. While the desktop, cable management tray and casters were all in separate boxes, the frame and two legs came packed together in one with plastic strapping around the box to protect it during shipping.
While Juniper includes two Allen wrenches along with the bolts and screws needed to put the desk together, you will also need a power drill to attach the desktop to the frame as this is a commercial product.
Assembling the Mobile Think Desk begins with inserting the two legs into the frame and attaching the two side pieces at either end using the provided bolts.
From here, you need to attach the frame to the desktop using a total of 21 wood screws. As some of these screws are quite close to the frame, we recommend using an extra long drill bit as a regular one will have a difficult time reaching them.
Once the desktop is attached to the frame, you then need to attach the feet to each leg using four bolts. If you opted for the Mobile Think Desk, it is at this stage that you would put two casters on each of the feet.
The final step of assembling the desk involves securing the control unit to the front edge of the desk. Here you’ll also need to connect it to the control box and tidy up all of the wires connecting the two legs.
Overall, putting together the Juniper Mobile Think Desk was a fairly straightforward process. However, securing the frame to the desktop took a bit longer than usual due to the large number of wood screws that needed to be installed.
In use
After we finished assembling the Juniper Think Mobile Desk, we first tested it out using a small form factor PC, an ultrawide monitor from LG, a mechanical keyboard and the MX Ergo mouse from Logitech. The desk provided plenty of room for all of our devices and the grommets on either side made it simple to neatly run cables.
We were also able to easily program our preferred sitting and standing positions using the control panel mounted to the right underside of the desk. While we initially had to touch and hold the buttons to adjust the desk to the right height, we eventually figured out how to set up one-touch operation using the control panel. In order to program the control panel to use one-touch operation, you first need to press and hold the “S” button for five seconds or until it flashes. From here, you release the “S” button and then press the “1” button for 3 seconds until the screen displays “H-O” (Constant-Touch) or “H-1” (One-Touch). You then use the up or down buttons to toggle between the two settings and then press and hold the “2” button for two seconds to confirm your choice.
This little annoyance aside, we really enjoyed our time testing out the Think Mobile Desk. While there is noticeable motor whine, it was never too distracting during use and the desk rose from its lowest to highest height in just ten seconds.
The competition
While there are plenty of manual and electric standing desks available, finding one with wheels is a bit harder. Thankfully, we found both an electric standing desk and a manual standing desk that both come with casters for those looking for a setup with a bit more mobility.
The Uplift V2 from Uplift Desk starts at $599 though the price can go up significantly depending on how you customize it. If you’re the kind of person that wants a custom desk tailored exactly to your liking, then the Uplift V2 is certainly worth checking out. This is because Uplift Desk gives you the ability to not only customize the size and finish of your desktop but also the color, type and style of its frame, keypad and grommets as well. You’ll also have the option to add a number of accessories during checkout. One of these accessories is casters for your desk and Uplift Desk offers three different types: regular desk casters, soft roll desk casters and heavy duty locking casters.
If you’d rather not have another cable coming from your desk, then The Lüften pneumatic standing desk from The Standing Desk may be worth taking a look at. The desk is currently available for $765 and you can choose between black, grey and white for the legs as well as from white, black and neutral twill for the desktop. In addition to the four lockable 2in casters that cost an additional $8.95, The Lüften features a 30x60-inch workspace as well as a unique, floating design.
Final verdict
The Mobile Think Desk from Juniper is a surprisingly sturdy and solid electric standing desk with multiple configurations available. The included casters are quite large and are easy to lock and unlock. During our testing they worked quite well on both hardwood floors and low-pile carpet and we had no trouble moving the desk from place to place.
In terms of usability, we really liked how easy the grommets on either end of the desk made it to run cables and the extra wide cable tray was a welcome addition too. While we would’ve liked it to be a bit wider and deeper, it did the job and was able to easily hold a power strip albeit in a vertical position. The control panel is also quite bright and the haptic feedback when pushing its buttons was another nice touch. Still though, we wish the control panel came preconfigured for one-touch operation as opposed to constant-touch.
If you’re looking for a solid electric desk with the added flexibility that comes from having casters attached to its feet, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better option than the Juniper Mobile Think Desk.
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