11 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
Good Quality and Flexible enough to accomidate any setup
Date of Review: May 7, 2007
The Bottom Line: This kit will give you the flexibility to arrange your LCDs/laptop the way you want them on your desk. Highly recommended.
I have two LCDs, an old very large monitor and a smaller one next to it. Previously, the big one was on a Kensington 60106 and the small one stood on its own. I decided that this would be a good solution for both. I was worried that weight would be a problem as my big LCD is 22.5LBS (it's old) and is about 4" deep, which would exceed this unit's spec of 20lbs (with a warning about deep monitors having a farther out center of gravity). However after reading other reviews, I decided to give it a shot.
Out of the box, the kit turns into a small flurry of parts:
-The base pole that clamps to the back of the desk (with a kit to mount it on a hole drilled through the desk)
-2x 'constant force' lift arms with 75mm VESA mounts
-2x extension arms that don't lift- the end of the extension arm is a stub with the same diameter as the pole
-2x 75mm to 100mm VESA adapter plate with screws etc
-A laptop tray with a 75mm VESA mount that can go on one arm
-decently good instructions
-various other hardware, allen keys, etc needed to set it up
Build quality of the parts is pretty good. The plastic casings feel a bit cheap or badly attached when you squeeze them but they are pretty solid and the real metal parts are excellent quality.
The idea is a good one- the base pole is just a vertical rod that mounts to the back of your desk. It has two adjustable collars on it, above which you mount each arm. You can either mount the constant force arm directly to the pole or use the extension for more reach and flexibility. At the end of each arm you can mount an LCD monitor or the laptop stand. That means that with the parts included with this kit, you can set yourself up for:
1 LCD
1 laptop
1 LCD + 1 laptop
2 LCD
Installation was easy with the included instructions. I have read complaints in other reviews about the instructions, which are light on text and heavy on pictures/diagrams. Personally I found that they may look complicated, but if you take a moment to read through it and understand which parts of it apply to you (there are many ways to set this up) they become very clear. The only concept that isn't made obvious is that the diagrams use + and - for tighten and loosen, but they also include arrows.
The only thing the manual doesn't mention is you must be careful to install the arm onto the LCD pointing the right way. VESA mounts are square (which means you can install it in any direction), but the monitor rotation only goes 90? (plus a bit in each direction) so you have to figure out which way you want your monitor and which way you might rotate it first.
Aside from that setup was easy- the clamp mount has an extra large knob so you can easily tighten it, and the arms just slide on. The only parts that need tools are the screws for the LCD and adapter brackets, the nut to tighten the 2nd collar, and the various force adjustments.
There are many force adjustments. Going from the arm out: There are screws which tighten the rotation around the rod/extension. You can adjust the lift force of the lifting arm (up/down elevate), the pan (left/right angle) stiffness, the tilt (up/down angle) lift force (there is an actual spring in there); the only thing that I don't think can be adjusted is the rotation stiffness. All axes are adjusted with allen keys, all of which are included in the kit. By adjusting the lift force and tilt force for the big monitor, I was able to attach my 22lb monitor with a far center of gravity without any problems. I think I was about at the end of the tilt spring adjustment, but the lift screw seemed like it had a ways more to go. The small one went on even smoother, requiring only a small loosening of the tilt screw.
Cabling is pretty easy with this, but it won't be out of sight. The bottom of the arms and extensions have a cavity for the cables, but it's just an open space with two flexible tabs on each side. You push the cable in between the two tabs and they hold it in. This actually works pretty well, but the cables aren't hidden from view.
Once everything is mounted and the force is adjusted for your monitors / the way you want it, the result is awesome. You can grab your monitor and move it anywhere you want it, then let go and it stays there. This can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. And because of the constant force arms, you can also lift your monitor vertically up and down too. The usefulness of this is like having two monitors- it's hard to explain how awesome it is to someone that's never used more than one. Even if you never move your LCDs again, having them set in exactly the right position for you makes this product well worth the $200-300 they charge for it.
I didn't use the laptop mount, it sits along with a bag of other spare parts and allen keys that I will probably need in the future.
In total, it probably took me about 20-30 minutes to install this. That included taking down and unwiring two LCDs, removing an old mount from one of them and removing the desk stand from the other, installing the lift arms onto the LCDs with the 100mm adapter plates (including re-installing one that I mounted the wrong way), clamping the base to the desk, installing the arms and extensions onto the base, adjusting the force screws and recabling everything through the arm's cable channels.
