But what’s wrong with plonking the monitor on a stack of books I hear you cry? Well in short, just about everything… not only does it look horrendous, but your workforce won’t thank you for it. Come to think of it, neither will your superiors. You see, a good monitor arm can remove a lot of pain from the daily grind, allowing your colleagues to focus on getting things done rather than on how bad they feel.

So how can you spot a good monitor arm? Where does it fit into your workspace?

Ideally, your monitor should be an arm’s length away from you and be at a height where you can sit up and keep your neck in a neutral position. A monitor arm not only allows you to control the distance between your monitor and your keyboard, but it also allows adjustment throughout the day as you move your body.

Whilst the physical benefits are undeniable, there is a strong aesthetic argument to be made too. A monitor arm frees up valuable space on a desk which is proven to help productivity… also, the sight of a beautiful super-slim monitor “floating” above the desk is something very pleasing to the eye! The Libero from Metalicon blends sleek, clean lines and an elegant form with a reassuringly robust approach to office ergonomics. What’s more, with a box-to-assembly time of under a minute, it’s easy to see why the Libero is becoming the arm of choice.

The post Pain in the neck? appeared first on Arrow Group.

Monitors with the correct fixing points are usually known as VESA compliant and the mounting point on monitor arms as the VESA plate. This mounting interface standard is a victory for consumers requiring cross compatibility. The VESA standard defines dimensions of a display’s four-hole attachment interface and the screws used to fit those holes. This normally means the hole pattern is centred on a display’s back with either a 100 x 100mm or 75 x 75mm mounting hole pattern, using M4 screws.

However, recently manufacturers such as Samsung and Acer have left VESA fixings off some of their new designs. Assumedly this is to slightly reduce their production costs. This is an annoyance to the consumer, particularly if they’ve ordered an office full of them before discovering there is no way to fix them to the monitor arms they have bought without expensive and clumsy adaptors. If you’re specifying monitor arms, be sure to check your customer has VESA compliant monitors, or if not yet purchased, warn them to choose compliant monitors.

Some manufacturers e.g. Asus, AOC, LG and Dell often include VESA even when their standard mount isn’t attached to the VESA fixings, but a visual check is one way to be sure. Even when monitors are compliant companies rarely advertise VESA compatibility due to licencing costs, so find out for certain by requesting the model number from your client and checking images online. Firstly check for four equally spaced holes in the back, but beware they are sometimes under another cover, so if not visible a call to the manufacturer in question is the only definitive answer.

The post Samsung and Acer not always VESA compatible appeared first on Arrow Group.