I am a physiotherapist by trade and routinely recommend my clients go for sit to stand desks. My two cents are as follows:
- Ikea sit to stand desks are of Ikea quality. The physician I rent my clinic space from bought a few Ikea sit to stands for the clinic and several of them have already had issues with dead motors. While warranty was still on the desks at the time of failure, my feeling is that they will likely fail again once out of warranty. I would suggest staying away from their products given my experiences.
- If you're going to get a sit-to-stand desk DEFINITELY spend the extra money to get memory presets. A manual hydraulic system will be the cheapest you can buy, with a manual electric being significantly more in most cases. With both of these solutions you will run into two problems:
1.) You will not have the exact same working height at sit or stand each time you move positions. While you wouldn't think being an inch higher or lower would make a big difference, in my experience it will likely have negative influences on your posture which in turn will lead to postural fatigue and soreness. A memory based electric table will make sure you get the exact same height every single time.
2.) As soon as you have to sit there for 30 seconds pushing a button or manually lift/lower you will likely use the sit/stand functions of your desk far less. The whole point of having a sit to stand desk is you will use it to change position frequently (ideally once every 45 minutes to an hour) so that you are never overusing your stabilizing musculature in one specific posture for too long. If the process of changing positions is a nuisance and you don't use it on a reasonable schedule, you'd might as well save your money and not even bother. If you go for a memory preset you can simply push a button and go to the washroom/check your phone/etc. while the adjustment takes care of itself
I personally use and will vouch for the Jarvis standing desk from Fully.com.
https://www.fully.com/standing-desks/jarvis.html
The reviews on this unit are excellent, the build quality is solid, and the warranty is great. You are also able to order the base without their tops for a fair bit less money/shipping than ordering a complete unit. What I did (since shipping to Canada was horrendous) is I ordered the base frame (389.00 USD) and memory unit and then upon receipt just had a custom top done. If you're looking to save money now, you can also just go to Home Depot and buy a 8' or 6' prefab countertop for less than 100 bucks which will likely serve your needs well.
