Friska Primo Designer Standing Desk: Two Minute Review
- Unique design for those who appreciate style
- Maybe too ‘quirky’ for some
Standing desks can be an expensive purchase for many, especially when compared to a more traditional desk, but despite this, the market can feel oversaturated with the same styles. The typical T-shaped legs are easy-to-install motors, which is the most likely explanation, but what do you do if you’re looking for something a little more unique?
The Friska Primo Designer standing desk is here to appeal to that niche market, and it is doing so with a flourish. You still get the benefits of an electric standing desk thanks to a control switch, but the industrial legs give it an oddly aggressive look that feels right at home in a modern environment.
Friska (opens in new tab) has a great selection of electric sit/stand desks to choose from to suit your needs so if this robust looking desk isn’t appealing you could also look into more conventional designs such as the Stockholm there are plenty of customization options available for it entire range of Friska desks.
Since the leg style is what makes the Primo unique, you can’t customize the shape or color, but you can play around with topper options and additional specs or accessories like cable port holes and improved controls.
This means you can essentially make the Primo as premium as your taste (or budget) requires, as the standard desk model still offers all the key functionality to set it up and get it ready to go, including a simple up/down control switch.
Friska Primo Designer standing desk: prices and availability
- Much more expensive than non-design agencies
- Shipping outside Europe will be pricey
Prices for the Friska Primo desk start at £1,273 (around $1,500 / AU$2,150), and shipping to the UK is both free and exceptionally fast, with next day delivery if you place your order before 2pm.
Friska appears to be based in Sweden, but we were unable to switch the displayed prices from GBP to Euros as the website conversion feature is not working at the time of writing. It is also worth noting that GBP and EUR are the only currencies listed.
You can pick the topper of your choice at no extra cost, although all other optional extras will require you to duck back into your pocket.
Fortunately, most of these tweaks are reasonably priced, such as increasing the overall size of the desktop or upgrading the standard up/down switch. The standard desktop topper is 1200mm x 700mm, and upgrading to the larger size of 1600mm x 700mm will set you back just an extra £35 (about $45 / AU$60).
The price might be a tough sell to consumers looking for a bargain, as the Primo is nearly twice as expensive as its more basic sibling, the Friska Stockholm, and significantly more expensive than some competing offerings like the Uplift V2.
It’s expensive, but it may be worth it for some who are totally looking for a desk with a more distinctive look. However, if you just want the motorized standing functionality, there are many more affordable options on the market.
One of the biggest problems with the Friska range is shipping, but when you make a product of this size and weight it will be expensive to ship it to places like the US or Canada.
Europe and the UK mainland appear to be Friska’s main market and UK orders will benefit from free shipping, with other regions also available at an additional cost. Shipping to the US, for example, is estimated to take 1-2 weeks and costs a flat rate of £498 ($610), but other regions such as Australia are completely excluded.
Friska Primo Designer standing desk: Design
- Leg design is interesting, but limited to one style
- Lots of wood effect toppers, no real wood options
The Friska Primo has arrived in two well-protected packages consisting of the legs, control switch and electric motors, while the topper is packaged separately to protect it from scratches. If you order extras, such as an improved control switch or power adapter, they will be shipped in a third extra box.
like you to do If you add any extras, it is important that you remember to open the smallest of the boxes first before you start building as it will contain instructions specific to your configuration, something you can easily overlook as a set of generic instructions for building a desk next to all Friska desks which can cause some frustration if you find the correct instructions after already assembling the Primo incorrectly.
If you’ve selected options that require extra holes or larger space for accessories, these are all pre-drilled and mounting guidelines marked on the toppers to help secure the frame to the worktop as painlessly as possible.
The standard control hub is a straight forward affair with two buttons with up and down arrows to mark the direction of desk movement. These are silicone coated for grip and have a satisfying click feel, but don’t have an option to save height presets for easy adjustments.
If you needed this functionality Friska has an upgrade available for an extra £99 (around $120 / AU$170), although you still get the standard control switch on delivery, which can feel a bit wasteful.
The Friska Primo has dual motors that allow the desk to be lowered all the way to 62cm or raised to 130cm (measured from the surface of the desk), although the Friska Stockholm can be adjusted more quickly and can support more weight, with a maximum weight limit of 264.4 lbs (120 kg) and a speed of 42 mm per second.
For context, the Friska Primo has a weight limit of 220 lbs (100 kg) and an adjustment speed of 36 mm per second. It’s also slightly louder than the more affordable Friska Stockholm when you compare the tech information provided (42dBA vs 38dBA), although we didn’t measure this ourselves.
We’re really nitpicking here as the main reason you’d buy this over something with a more universal design is for aesthetics, and the difference is unlikely to affect most users unless you need a desk that can bear the weight of a large, grown man.
The topper itself comes in a selection of different styles such as black, white and a variety of wood and granite inspired looks although this is all art vinyl wrapped around engineered wood so if you want a solid wood option you have go look elsewhere.
The only issue we had when assembling for the Friska Primo was that the design of these legs means it’s quite difficult to tighten two half-covered bolts, and you don’t get any specialized tools to do this with the instructions. We had a ratcheting socket wrench which made the process much easier so you might want to have a tool kit on hand, but it would have been nice if Friska had even supplied an inexpensive tool best suited to the task.
Friska Primo Designer standing desk: features
- Many optional extras
- Easy to operate, although the controls are very basic
Like other desks in Friska’s product family, the base model of the Primo is fairly spartan, just with the standard up/down switch and no additional accessories. This is fine for most furniture, but the Primo is a lot more expensive than the Stockholm and all you get for that is a different style of legs.
Assembling the Friska Primo was easy (provided you find the right instructions) and no more complicated than the non-designer models. You can build most of it on your own but we recommend getting an extra pair of hands to turn it around as the whole desk is quite heavy when assembled and can cause serious damage if you drop it on your feet .
The Primo motor is mounted on the underside of the desk, with clear pre-drilled holes to indicate where best to place it. In fact, you don’t need to drill at all, and free self-adhesive cable clamps are included to tidy up some cables so they don’t hang and look out of place when you turn the desk over.
It would have been nice to see a few extras as standard to justify the asking price, such as an under-desk cable duct or an upgrade to the memory control switch, but this is a uniquely designed piece of furniture, so you would buy it more for its looks than for its value.
Should I buy the Friska Primo Designer Standing Desk?
Buy it if:
Don’t buy it if:
First assessment: June 2022
