Secretlab Magnus Pro review

What problem is this desk solving?

Not height adjustment. Plenty of desks go up and down. The Magnus Pro is built around the observation that the thing ruining most desks is not the surface, it is the eleven cables underneath it, and that a sit-stand desk makes cables dramatically worse because everything has to survive a 600 mm vertical journey twice a day.

Secretlab's answer is more thorough than anyone else's. The power supply is integrated into the leg column, so a single cable runs from the wall to the desk and everything else — monitor power, dock, lights — plugs in at the desk. A steel tray runs the full length of the frame behind a hinged cover you can open from a standing position. The top is steel, so the magnetic accessories clip anywhere rather than at predetermined points.

Used as designed, the result is the cleanest desk we have set up. Not "tidy for a photograph" — genuinely clean underneath, after a fortnight of plugging things in and out.

The specification

The height range is 650 to 1250 mm, which is unusually generous at both ends. Most desks bottom out around 700 mm, which is too high for shorter people to sit properly at; most top out around 1200 mm, which is not quite enough for someone near two metres in thick-soled shoes. This one covers both.

Capacity is 120 kg. Three memory presets, which is one fewer than the category norm and the sort of detail that only annoys households where two people share a desk.

Stability is excellent, as it should be on a steel chassis this heavy. The trade-off is weight: moving it across a room is a planned, two-person event, and getting it up stairs is a genuine consideration.

The accessory question

Here is the part the marketing will not put plainly. The Magnus Pro's cable system works properly when you buy into the ecosystem: the magnetic cable anchors, the magnetic deskmat, the cable sheath, the headphone hanger. Individually none of these is expensive. Collectively they add a significant fraction of the desk's price.

The deskmat is close to mandatory rather than optional. A bare steel top is cold to rest wrists on, noisy when you put a mug down, and — the part nobody mentions — shows every fingerprint. Budget for it as part of the desk, not as an accessory.

Our honest advice: either buy the desk and the ecosystem together and enjoy a genuinely excellent result, or buy a different desk. The Magnus Pro with none of its accessories is an expensive steel table with good cable routing and an uncomfortable surface.

Assembly, and the weight

This is the heaviest desk in this review and it arrives in more than one box. The steel top alone is a genuine two-person lift, and the frame is not far behind.

Budget ninety minutes, two people, and a clear floor. Secretlab's instructions are among the best we have followed — printed properly, step-numbered, with the fasteners separated into labelled bags — and the tolerances are tight enough that parts either fit or you have them the wrong way round, which is a good property in flat-pack.

Plan the route to the room first. Once assembled, this desk does not go through a doorway without coming apart again.

The white version, and fingerprints

Secretlab sell it in black and white. Having used the black one, we would tell anyone considering it that a bare dark steel surface shows fingerprints in a way that becomes genuinely distracting in raking light from a window.

The magnetic deskmat covers the area you touch most, which fixes it. It also means the "mat is optional" framing on the product page is not really true, and it is the second reason we treat the mat as part of the desk's price rather than as an accessory.

The white version hides marks better and shows dust more. Pick your preferred annoyance.

Where it loses to the plain competition

An Uplift V3 with a laminate top will do the up-and-down job just as well for less money, with a longer warranty, in more sizes, with a surface you can rest your wrists on straight out of the box.

What it will not do is make your cables disappear. If you have a desktop PC, two monitors, a dock, a light bar, a microphone arm and a charging pad, that is the difference you are paying for, and it is a real one.

Verdict

An 8.3. It is the most thoughtfully engineered desk here and it is not the best-value one. Buy it if the cable problem is the problem you actually have.