Ever since Secretlab initially revealed the Magnus Pro desk a few years ago, I’ve wanted this desk to replace the older setups I had been using over the years, and recently I was given the opportunity to review the Magnus Pro and a collection of its optional accessories to see how things stack up. Secretlab agreed to send out the desk and several of these accessories following the launch of the new white model of the Magnus Pro, which is what I’ve been using for the past several weeks.
At first glance, it seems like your typical sit-to-stand desk but it’s so, so much more than that. In fact, the sit-to-stand feature isn’t even the biggest reason I’ve wanted to test out this desk for so long. It’s the cable management and the magnetic ecosystem. Now, I love magnets. If your product has magnets integrated into it in any way, I am immediately interested, provided it’s a product I would actually buy and use.
So when I saw that Secretlab had created a whole magnetic ecosystem for the Magnus Pro desk, my attention was grabbed. The main reason for getting something like the Magnus Pro, however, is cable management. The possibility for organization with this desk is unmatched thanks to the innovative power column, and when paired with the cable management tray and other cable management features and options, you’ll almost forget anything on your desk even uses cables. Because they’ll be mostly out of sight. With all of that said, the Magnus Pro setup is not a cheap setup.
At a starting cost of $799 for just the desk alone, the cost can increase quite a lot in the blink of an eye. The MAGPAD desk mat, for example, is an additional $79 minimum depending on which style you get. Then there’s the magnetic cable anchors which are $25 for a three-pack, or as much as $99 for a single Secretlab Customs 3D cable anchor, such as the Akatsuki one you’ll see in the images below.
The dual monitor arms, which I am using in this review, are $249. And there’s a host of other accessories you can get which continue to drive up the price. Like I said, the Magnus Pro setup is expensive, but, is it worth it? Let’s dive into this review and see if Secretlab’s metal sit-to-stand desk is worth the investment.
Secretlab Magnus Pro Review: Hardware & Design
In using this desk for the past several weeks one of my most memorable moments with it so far has been the setup. Getting this desk put together was an interesting experience because I was sort of floored at the quality of the hardware and the organized way in which Secretlab has you assemble everything. Speaking of assembly, assembling the Magnus Pro almost couldn’t get any easier. The way this desk was designed makes it so simple to get this desk put together.
For example, when you have the desk surface top-side down to install the legs, there is no wrong way to install them. They only fit into their slots one way so it’s impossible to screw it up. This and other little details like the incredibly detailed yet easy-to-read instruction guide made this desk assembly pretty much a breeze. Although, I will say that you most certainly want to get it set up with another person.
I did this alone and it took me way longer than it would have if I had help from a friend. So don’t be like me. Get a friend to help you with this to speed up the process, and to save your back from soreness for the next few days because you decided you could easily move around a big metal desk by yourself that weighs a ton.
Now when it comes to the quality of the hardware, everything on the desk is top-notch. My personal favorite things so far are the magnetic cable anchors, the MAGPAD desk mat, and the dual monitor arms. They all feel really solid and very well-made. The design of the desk is also nothing short of magical. The engineers and designers over at Secretlab must be some actual wizards for the way they were able to put this whole thing together. It seems as if every single little detail was taken into consideration to make the user experience with this desk a delight.
For instance, the cable management tray has this really easy lifting mechanism that allows you to hide the cables inside. It also serves as a nice flat surface for the RGB lighting to bounce off of if you get the optional MAGRGB light strip. Which I would highly recommend getting if you get this desk. Especially if you have Nanoleaf products because the light strip is powered by Nanoleaf and will sync with those other light panels.
The new white color of the desk also helps bring this nice look to your gaming and/or work-from-home setup that sort of brightens up the space. Overall the hardware and design are top-tier.
Secretlab Magnus Pro Review: The Accessories
The Magnus Pro is a great sit-to-stand desk all on its own without the accessories. Trust me when I say this though, you want the accessories. As many of them as you can fit into your budget and that will make sense to integrate into your setup. Because these are what really make the Magnus Pro something special. Take the desk riser for example. I feel like this is something you definitely want if you get the smaller model. The Magnus Pro comes in two sizes – the large which is 59.1 inches and the extra large which is 70 inches.
I’m reviewing the large model, and if you have a decent amount of stuff in your setup you definitely want that extra space you’ll get from the riser. It also sort of helps to keep things a little more organized so the desk stays looking clean, too. Beyond the desk riser, there are tons of other accessories that you can add to build out your ultimate desk.
In all, I’m using the desk riser, the dual monitor arms, the laptop mount, the MAGRGB light strip, the MAGPAD desk mat in Silver Suede, and two sets of cable management bundles which come with magnetic cable anchors and magnetic cable sheaths. Pro tip: you’ll want quite a few of those magnetic cable anchors. Between the two bundles, I ended up with six not including the Akatsuki custom one, and it’s simply not enough. It can be, but for my setup, I just had so many cables that needed to be organized so they were out of the way and these anchors were the only way I could get that done simply.
With that being said, the anchors do an amazing job of keeping your cables managed. And for the larger groups of cables, you can hide them entirely with the magnetic cable sheaths. You don’t need these things of course. However, they make things look a whole lot cleaner. If you want a clean setup and have a lot of cables to work with, then you’ll want the magnetic anchors and sheaths.
The MAGPAD desk mat is a must-have item
The Magnus Pro doesn’t come with this but it’s another one of those add-ons that I definitely feel is a must-have item. I ended up with two that Secretlab sent out for me to take a look at which are the Ash Gray and Silver Suede. I immediately went for the Silver Suede because of its microsuede material and its light-to-medium gray color. Since these are magnetic, you can get a few and swap them out if you desire. Though you’d have to take everything off the desk and make the switch then put everything back again.
This isn’t ideal if you have the riser and monitor arms because you’d have to undo some of the cable management in addition to disassembling those pieces. And that’s quite honestly a lot of work that I don’t necessarily feel is worth it. Aside from that, the MAGPAD desk mat, regardless of which one you choose, is a really cool add-on that can serve as your mouse mat. The Silver Suede not only looks and feels good, but my mouse has no issues gliding across its surface when I’m playing games. I wasn’t sure if that would be a problem or not, but I’m happy to report that it isn’t an issue.
However, there is one detail about the Silver Suede desk mat that you’ll want to pay attention to. It requires occasional care to ensure the micro suede stays in good condition. Microsuede is a very delicate material and can easily be ruined if you’re not careful. Spilling liquids on it can make for a cleaning nightmare for one.
The bigger problem is the possibility for the material to become matted. There are two small areas where my hands would generally sit while I’m holding a controller for the games I’m playing, and these areas have already ended up a little matted. Potentially from the oils in my skin being in contact with the microsuede over extended periods of time.
I’ve reached out to Secretlab to see if there’s a way to fix this and will update this review if and when I get an answer. But for now, just know that you’ll want to be very careful and take care to give the Silver Suede desk mat a nice dusting from time to time. For this, you want to use a dry microfiber cloth. You can also use a brush but have to brush against the grain of the upholstery if you do. Other than this one detail, the Silver Suede MAGPAD desk mat has been pretty awesome. The material is super soft and just extremely comfortable to the touch. Although it requires a little more care, I’d highly recommend it over any of the other options. As I think it looks and feels the nicest.
The MAGRGB light strip can add some immersion to your entertainment
I’ll say this with an asterisk as there’s really only one way this works properly. You need the Nanoleaf 4D kit. The MAGRGB light strip is powered by Nanoleaf which means it can sync with the Nanoleaf Shapes panels and the Nanoleaf 4D light kit. The beauty of the Nanoleaf 4D is that the camera that comes with it scans the colors that are on your screen. So when you’re playing a game or watching a movie, all those colors get reflected off the wall behind your monitor.
So with the Shapes panels and the MAGRGB strip, you can have a pretty awesome setup that adds some enhanced immersion with everything syncing together. You can technically do this without the Nanoleaf 4D by using the Nanoleaf PC app as there’s a 4D lighting option in it. However, in my experience, the PC app has not worked very well at all and the app has had trouble finding the MAGRGB strip. So while I do think it’s an awesome accessory, I think it’s best if you have the Nanoleaf 4D kit to really spice things up.
You can certainly get the strip without any of the other stuff. However, unless you really just like RGB, I don’t think the experience you get from it is as impactful without the color syncing from your monitor. All that being said, the light strip is pretty slick, and getting it set up was incredibly simple. Remember, this desk’s whole accessory ecosystem attaches magnetically. So all I had to do was plug the MAGRGB light strip into my surge protector in the cable management tray and stick the light strip to the underside of the desk. It was effortless.
Don’t skimp on the magnetic cable anchors
Even without the cable anchors the desk’s cable management tray does a good job of keeping most of the cables out of sight. This really only applies to the cables that are for things that need to be plugged directly into a power source though. For your mouse, keyboard, and anything else that’s going to be plugged into your PC or console, you’ll want the anchors to keep the cables in place.
If you’re really smart with your cable management, you can likely get by with just a handful of these. I did my cable management a little hastily because I had already spent most of a Saturday putting the desk together and setting everything else up. So my solution was tidying everything up using the magnetic cable anchors. The point I’m trying to make is that you might find you need more of these than you anticipated. In my experience, I ended up using all of the anchors from the bundles on the underside of the desk. This left me with just the Akatsuki custom anchor I purchased to use for a single cable on the desktop, despite the fact that I could benefit from having a few more to keep things a little more neat.
Basically, I would suggest getting around 9 or 10 if you really want to make cable management as simple and tidy as possible. You definitely don’t want to skimp on these though because they’re probably the most useful add-on the Magnus Pro has. My only gripe with these is that the white and silver anchors that were released as part of the white collection aren’t available as a standalone option. You can only get the three-pack of anchors in red or black. This means you have to spend at least $45 to get the Cable Management Bundle – Large to get the matching colors, and that only comes with three anchors.
Furthermore, as I said you will probably want or need more than that. So if you want matching anchors, you’ll end up needing two bundles, or just sizing up to the Extra Large bundle which comes with 9 anchors in total. The latter is probably the way to go since it’s cheaper (the Extra Large bundle is $79, compared to $90 for Large bundles which come with three fewer anchors.)
Secretlab Magnus Pro Review: Height Adjustment
This might be the feature I used the least because I don’t often change from sitting to standing for work or otherwise, but I have used it a fair amount of times since beginning to review the desk. My last desk was a sit-to-stand desk as well, but it was from Ikea, and while it was powered, there were two buttons – one for making the legs go up, and one for making the legs go down. You had to keep your finger pressed on either one to get to the height you wanted.
You can still do that with the Magnus Pro. However, the buttons are not physical and instead are capacitive touch buttons. Which in my opinion are easier to operate. That isn’t what makes the height adjustment on this desk so much better though. What makes it better is the addition of the three programmable height options. To the right of the up and down arrow buttons, you have the 1, 2, and 3 buttons you can press to get the height you want. Once pressed, these will automatically go to whatever they were programmed for.
So if you have multiple people that use the desk, this is a great way to set the heights for each of those people. Now I have accidentally touched these capacitive buttons on more than one occasion. And that’s certainly a valid concern if you don’t want to constantly have to mess with re-adjusting things.
The good news is you can lock these buttons down. Secretlab has included a little switch all the way to the right of the height controls. You can use this switch to toggle the buttons on or off. So if you rarely change the height, just keep this switch set to off and you’ll never accidentally raise or lower the desk again.
The motors in the legs work well and they seem to be durable so there shouldn’t be any worry about things breaking down on you anytime soon. Nothing lasts forever, of course. But I wouldn’t worry about the motors in the desk legs going out on you well before you would expect. Especially if you’re never really adjusting the height. In fact, Secretlab says these were tested for 20,000 cycles. I doubt I’ll get anywhere close to using the motors that much, and most other people won’t either. So the motors should be fine for however long you own this desk.
The control panel is out of the way
I wanted to touch on the control panel a little bit because it’s something I have had a minor issue with on past desks. On most sit-to-stand desks the control panel is usually mounted to the underside of the desk in some way. This was also true with my most recent desk, that I was using before the Magnus Pro. While small, the control panels aren’t that small on all desks. And for the ones that are larger, there’s always the (quite frankly high) possibility that you’ll bump it with your chair’s arm at some point.
That will never be a problem with the Magnus Pro because the control panel is a wide strip that’s front-facing and not mounted underneath. It’s completely out of the way which I think is a huge plus. The control panel is also backlit with LEDs so it’s always easy to see the buttons when you need to use them. Not to mention, the desk has a height range of 650mm all the way up to 1,250mm. There’s also a small screen to the left of all the buttons that tells you what height the desk is at as you adjust things. In short, just about anyone can find the right height for their needs.
Should you buy the Secretlab Magnus Pro?
As with anything we review here, whether or not you should buy this desk will more or less depend on your needs or wants. However, after using this desk for the past several weeks, I think anyone looking for a high-quality sit-to-stand desk for their gaming and/or work-from-home setup, should heavily consider getting the Secretlab Magnus Pro. If for no other reason than the cable management alone.
I spent years with desks that had no cable management at all or just didn’t have a very good setup. This made it all the more difficult to manage cables properly without spending quite a bit of extra money on aftermarket solutions, which would require a lot more time to set up. In the end, I just said to hell with it and just let the cables fall where they may because I was tired of trying to make things look perfect with the desks that I had. This is and never will be a problem with the Magnus Pro. The cable management capabilities are absolutely without equal here.
It’s a smart solution that can help anyone achieve the goal of an organized desk setup that doesn’t have an unsightly mangled rat’s nest of cables hung about like jungle vines. The thing is, this isn’t the only reason to get this desk. For me, it was the biggest reason I wanted it. But there is a lot more this desk has to offer that makes it worth consideration and in my opinion, the monetary investment. The magnetic ecosystem of add-ons is slick, so everything just ends up looking really clean. In short, yes, I think most people should probably think about buying the Secretlab Magnus Pro.
You should buy the Secretlab Magnus Pro if:
- Your desk’s cable management leaves something to be desired
- You want access to a wide range of useful and stylish desk add-ons
- You’re looking for a high-quality sit-to-stand desk
You shouldn’t buy the Secretlab Magnus Pro if:
- You need something less expensive that can fit into your budget
- You’re not really concerned with cable management at all
