marinamantra Flow Desk Review: A Floor to Standing Desk That's Unique and Aesthetic

When we built our DIY floor desk setups 7 years ago, floor to standing desks were just a fantasy. However, if you’re looking to set up one today for the health benefits, you have another problem — choices.

For some time, floor to standing desk choices were limited. More than a year ago, we reviewed the Lowdesk Pro by Lowdesk (formerly Uppeal Design), one of the only options available. With the Flow Desk, marinamantra has produced a more than worthy competition in this niche space.

(As of 30th December 2025: If you’re outside of the US, you’ll have to wait a little longer, as the Flow Desk currently only ships within the US.)

While many electric standing desks can look and feel a little industrial with their practical designs, the Flow Desk is an elegant looking alternative. The combination of plywood tabletop and grey felt covers gives off a warm and designer-ish vibe.

Note that this is not designed to be a portable desk. It is heavy, and you’ll definitely need an additional pair of hands to help put this desk together.

Assembly was pretty straightforward. The instructions provided were clear, and marinamantra even included the tools (screwdriver and bits) required. In total, it took us a reasonable 25 minutes or so to assemble.

Usually, after setting up a desk for the first time, you would have the dreadful and time-wasting task of cable management. The Flow Desk’s design deals with this thoughtfully.

They have felt covers that you put on to hide the cables, complete with a cut-out for where your legs go, and a rear cable tray for additional organization. We wish the cable tray was a little more spacious, as some larger, odd-shaped power bricks (like the Macbook’s) may fit awkwardly.

(Update: Our early batch unit had velcro style felt covers, while future batches will come with nail-on covers. We expect this to increase assembly time, but it will be more secure and eliminates the possibility of velcro adhesives peeling from the desk.)

Even after tidying up the cables, there’s one cable you can’t hide — the desk’s power cable. You almost always have to leave some slack for this cable so the desk can move up and down freely.

That’s what we thought, but the Flow desk has an integrated system, where power and cables run inside the legs, with the power outlet at the bottom. This means there is no dangling cable, and no need to worry about it snagging onto objects when changing heights.

The clean aesthetic is topped off with a touch-sensitive control panel on the tabletop for adjusting the desk. More on that later.

At first glance, it’s easy to mistake the Flow Desk as just another x-frame style desk, (think: a motorized ironing board), which has been done on other adjustable desks.

But, with a regular x-frame, the base gets narrower the higher the desk goes, which theoretically means it becomes less stable. Something else we thought might drive us nuts is that, depending on chance, the desk could drift to either side when changing heights.

If you pay close attention, you’ll realize the Flow Desk’s feet stay in position when the desk goes up and down. This means it retains a wide base even as it goes higher, and more importantly, there won’t be any drifting, whatsoever.

This detail alone makes it a candidate for a full-time desk rather than just serving as a portable part-time desk.

Arguably, the most important spec of floor to standing desks is the height range. We measured the Flow Desk’s lowest height at 37cm (14.6”). For people of average height (like ourselves), this is creeping into usable territory for sitting on the floor directly without any cushions.

(For reference, our DIY floor desks were 33cm [13”] tall, while the Lowdesk Pro has a minimum height of around 42cm [16”]. Check out this article for how to find your perfect floor desk height.)

If you’re on the shorter side, anything above 37cm (14.6”) or so may be a bit of an awkward height without cushions. However, we recommend sitting on an elevated surface when working on the floor anyway, and as long as you have something like a yoga block, then the lowest height of the Flow Desk should work for the majority of the population.

At its tallest, the desk measures about 119cm (47”). Neither of us are over six feet tall (183cm) to test this with, but in our simulation, the desk was still able to accommodate.

This makes for a total travel of 82cm (32.3”). This is best in class, and actually about 2cm more than the Lowdesk Pro by Lowdesk, the previous highest height range we’ve seen.

At the lowest setting, there’s not much wobble side to side, and a very slight amount of wobble front to back.

A stability test at the midway height 78cm (31”) for reference:

And at the highest setting: lateral stability is still very good, but as to be expected, we noticed more front-to-back wobble, although it remains very acceptable.

We would have liked to see micro-adjustments on the desk feet. Our floors have some unevenness, especially in the corners, and we feel like having micro-adjustments would have made it feel even more stable.

Note that we tested the desk with a laptop setup and not a full desktop setup. With a heavier setup including monitor and speakers, any wobbliness could appear more pronounced.

We should also mention noise levels (or lack thereof). This is not a lightweight desk, so it was surprising how quiet the motor is. With background noise, like our fans running and cars going by outside, we can barely hear the desk when it’s moving. Impressive!

However, on our unit, there is a small squeak for a split second whenever the desk starts moving off, a bit like a creaky cabinet door. We believe this is an anomaly, perhaps uneven lubrication, as it got a bit better with time and use.

Overall, stability and sturdiness were more than satisfactory in our experience. In day-to-day use, when we’re not shaking the desk for no reason, we did not notice any instability issues, and we could confidently lean on it without feeling like it would buckle under the pressure.

Here are some potential “shortcomings” of the desk, along with our thoughts on whether they’re valid concerns or deal breakers.

Throughout our test, we tried sitting in a bunch of different ways. We noticed that when the desk is low, the desk frame can get in our legs’ way a little when we’re switching between positions. Over time, we got used to it and became aware enough to avoid it.

Of course, you won’t be able to stretch out your legs when sitting on the floor with this. This is more relevant to laid-back postures like sitting on a floor chair or bean bag with back support. We don’t work in these positions anymore, so having less legroom is just a minor inconvenience for us, but it could be a huge consideration point for you if you’re someone who values being able to stretch out your legs at your floor desk. That’s just the unfortunate reality of this sort of x-frame design.

Our take: No big deal for one group of people, potential deal breaker for another.

Moving the Flow Desk from the lowest to highest setting took about 36 seconds. On paper, we noticed this is a touch slower than conventional adjustable desks, as these x-frame style legs have to move horizontally to push the desk up and down, so some speed is lost there. However in practice, we were never bothered by that few seconds of difference.

Our take: No big deal, unless you really don’t have the patience for a slightly slower desk.

We have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the touch-sensitive control panel. In the first couple of days, while we’re still familiarizing ourselves with the desk, we accidentally activated the touch controls a number of times. Thankfully, it’s just as quick and easy to stop right away and get it back to the right height.

Once we got used to (and memorized) it, touch controls are fast, convenient, and look sleek on the desk. Still, they’re more accident-prone, so we just learned to develop a certain mindfulness about that particular corner of the desk.

In our Lowdesk Pro floor to standing desk review, we also “complained” about its touch pad. Those have heavy tactile buttons, and they require you to hold for a second before the desk activates, whereas with the touch controls on the Flow Desk, they activate almost instantly with a light touch. This makes little sense to us, and if anything, we thought the two desks should exchange control schemes.

Our take: No big deal, especially if marinamantra can make some UX improvements.

marinamantra has also designed a couple of useful accessories to build your perfect workspace.

The first is what they call a bunk table. This is a clamped-on shelf with a rated weight limit of 15kg (33lbs), useful for putting your laptop screen at a more appropriate height, or as additional storage for small items. It’s ideally clamped onto the back of the desk, but it can also be clamped onto the side if desired (although that feels a bit more sketchy, so it’s not recommended for heavier objects). We also like how convenient it is to quickly slide our desk mat under it to make space for other things.

The other accessory is their cable clip. This is a simple friction-fit organization tool to keep cables on your desk tidy and conveniently in reach.

All in all, we think this is a really unique floor to standing desk. It looks unique, and it functions uniquely as well. If the tighter legroom of an x-frame design is not a deal breaker for you, the Flow Desk by marinamantra is easy to recommend.

It’s not the fastest or most stable desk in the world, but it works as well as we would expect from an adjustable floor desk. Most importantly, it has a height range that works incredibly well for us average height folks. Yet, it’s the many small, thoughtful design elements that left the strongest impression on us.

There’s a lot of potential with the Flow Desk’s unique x-frame design. That would make floor sitters out there very happy.

You can use our link and discount code [THOUGHTWORTHY15] to save 15% on your order (until end Feb 2026), and that helps to support our work as well. If you have any questions, don’t be shy about asking them in the comments, and we’ll do our best to answer them.

Disclaimer: We were sent the Flow desk by marinamantra, and they have sponsored a video in the past. However, all thoughts and opinions are our own, and this article is not part of a collaboration.