Height adjustable desks or standing desks are getting very popular these days due to WFH becoming norm. With Martiangear rolling out gaming chairs like Supernova, it is about time they rolled out with their own desk series, which is the Martiangear Apollo II, that retails for S$588. You can get it for cheaper by applying discount code TECHJIOBLOG for S$60 off, making it S$528.
Assembly
The Martiangear Apollo II is delivered flat-packed and the package is pretty heavy. It would be best if you had someone to help with assembly, but I built the desk alone and it took me about 1-2 hours. Martiangear has actually made the self-assembly of the desk really easy.
Firstly, the screws and Allen keys are all alphabetically labelled from A to I. Secondly, the parts of the frame are neatly labelled numerically from 1 to 8. Lastly, Martiangear included a high quality assembly guide poster, with clear and detailed step-by-step instructions on assembling the Martiangear Apollo II.
In case you want a soft copy of the assembly guide, you can find it below.
The desk frame needs to be screwed to the table top. And if you’re thinking to have to draw lines to align the frame in the middle of the tabletop, fret not. The table top comes with guiding screw holes to show you where to screw in the Allen and Phillips screws. I got a little too engrossed with assembling the desk that I forgot to take pictures of the back of the desk, but hopefully you get an idea from the images below:
You can choose where to place the included headphone hook and the control handset (left or right). I found the default placement of the control handset to be a little too close to the middle such the Martiangear Starfighter‘s arm rest would collide into it when I move the chair. As such, I re-positioned the control handset further to the right.
The last step of assembling the Martiangear Apollo II is tightening the levelling studs on the legs of the frame. If you have a need to move the desk around often, you can consider purchasing the desk castor wheels, and install them instead of the levelling studs.
It is great that the wheels are made from silicon, which feel really high quality, instead of the cheaper plastic wheels. They roll around very smoothly and quietly.
Build quality
The Martiangear Apollo II has really great build quality. There is simply no rattling of parts when I shake the desk. Even at its highest height, the desk stills feels very stable and there is barely any wobble.
The tabletop is made from MDF (medium-density fiberboard). Although it is not pure wood, the wood still feels really dense and sturdy. I especially like the thickness (2.5cm) of the tabletop, which allows for easier mounting of a monitor arm. Currently, there is only one choice for the size of the tabletop which is 120cm * 60cm. I personally prefer table tops with 70cm of depth, but I’m pretty sure as Martiangear expands, we will see more sizes of tabletops. The tabletop have rounded edges which is child friendly, but I personally prefer squared-off corners as it look more modern.
Design
You can tell which is the front and back of the desk simply by looking at the tabletop as one end of the tabletop has a tiny cutout to allow for cables to pass through. This is really useful for people using monitor stands as you can funnel all you cables through the middle cutout, allowing you to keep the desk flushed against the wall.
For the Martiangear Apollo II, you can choose two different colours of tabletop – (1) Space Black, or (2) Walnut. I went for the ‘Walnut’ variant as I prefer a wooden look. Do note that currently, the choice of the tabletop will determine the colour of the frame. Currently, the ‘Walnut’ tabletop is only accompanied by a white frame. I was told by Martiangear that customisability of desk frame will be coming in the near future.
Warranty
Martiangear offers up to 12 years warranty for the metal structure frame. The other parts of the Martiangear Apollo II is covered for 5 years – which means this would be the minimum period of warranty you’ll get.
| Components | Duration |
|---|---|
| Metal Structure Frame | 12 Years |
| Motor | 5 Years |
| Mechanism | 5 Years |
| Table Top | 5 Years |
Sit/Stand functionality
There are usually common things that are discussed when talking about a sit/stand desk such as ‘height range’, ‘number of motors’, ‘noise’, ‘memory presets’, ‘speed’ and more.
Quiet dual motors
Powering the height adjustment mechanism is a dual motor system that moves the table up/down at speeds of 35mm. There is expected whirring noise coming from the motors but it isn’t too distracting at about 50db of noise measured using the Decibel app. You can check out the recording below to get a sense of the sound:
Height range and adjustment
You can adjust the Martiangear Apollo II from the lowest of 70cm to the highest of 120cm. It would have been nice to see the desk be able to go even lower to 60cm to better fit shorter individuals but 70cm is good enough for the average height. The height of the desk is adjusted by the control handset.
The control handset has the up and down button to manually adjust the height. There is an LED panel to display the current height of the desk and it is shown in centimetres, precise to 1 decimal point. The numbered buttons are custom height memory presets which I’ll get into later.
The ascend and descend of the desk is very stable. Both the ‘cup of water’ and even the ‘standing pencil’ test passed with flying colours.
Custom height memory presets
You can also set four height presets so with one tap of the button, the desk goes to your desired height. I find that having these memory presets to be very convenient and they do encourage you to stand and work. Personally, I find that having to manually adjust the height while I’m in middle of your work can totally make me lazy and just continue sitting down.
You can check out the manual for the control handset below:
Anti-collision
The anti-collision feature built into the Martiangear Apollo II will prevent the desk from descending further when it hits contacts something. To be very accurate, it isn’t really anti-collision as it does require some sort of collision for the feature to kick in. However, every other standing desk brands the feature by the same name so I’d thought it’ll be good to point this out.
I’m guessing the motors senses the amount of opposing pressure it receives, and if it surpasses a certain threshold, then the anti-collision feature will kick in. Check out the video demo below to understand how the anti-collision feature works:
Other features
Apart from the main sit/stand functionality, there are other small but useful features that are built into the construction of the Martiangear Apollo II.
Cable management tray
The Martiangear Apollo II comes with cable management tray conveniently located under the tabletop right where the cable cutout is at. It is great that without extra charge, you get a tray to store excess cables and extension surge protector. The cable management tray is about 40cm long, which should be long enough for storing a 6-socket surge protector.
However, given that the tabletop is 120cm long, it would have been nice to see a longer cable management tray such as 80cm, to better make use of the space underneath the tabletop.
Headphone hook
Martiangear also throws in a free headphone hook, which you can choose to place either on the left or the right side of the desk. It is such a convenient feature to have as I can simply reach over to grab my Audio-Technica ATH-G1WL whenever I want to game, instead of walking over to my cupboard where I used to keep them.
Add-on accessory: Desktop Organiser
Martiangear separately sells accessories such as a Desktop Organiser for S$78, which is a mini pegboard that comes with useful containers. What you’ll get is:
- Metal pegboard (28.5cm * 22cm)
- Standing base
- Small container * 1
- Big container * 2
- Long tray * 1
- Hooks * 2
The standing base is hefty and keeps the pegboard well in place on the table. It puts the pegboard at a slight inclined angle as well, making it easy to put and remove items in the containers. The beauty of the Desktop Organiser is that it is modular, meaning you can set the containers in any way you like.
Conclusion
Height adjustable desks isn’t cheap, they usually cost at least S$750 for models with custom height memory presets. Martiangear has delightfully brought down the cost of owning a height adjustable desk at a lower price S$588. Do keep in mind that there isn’t much customisability options in terms of table top size and design, but if you’re more into the functionality of a standing desk, then the Martiangear Apollo II is bound to serve that.
You can even make the Martiangear Apollo II cheaper if you apply the discount code TECHJIOBLOG for S$60 off, making it S$528. And for S$528, you’re still getting some of the more ‘expensive’ features such as custom height memory presets and dual motors, backed by a 12-year long warranty.
TECHJIOBLOG
Get S$60 off your purchase
