Ergotron HX Desk Monitor Arm Review: How Did I Live Without It?!

Ergotron's heavy-duty HX Desk Monitor Arm is something that is so good, I truly don't know how I lived without it for so long.

Published Sep 3, 2021 9:51 AM CDT   |   Updated Sun, Oct 10 2021 8:35 PM CDT
Manufacturer: Ergotron (45-475-216)
8 minute read time
TweakTown's Rating: 95%
TweakTown award

The Bottom Line

Ergotron's premium HX Monitor Arm is a heavy-duty mofo that I seriously, very seriously don't know how I lived without it. Damn it, now I need another 3 or 4 of them, they're that good.

Introduction

I will be honest with you... I've never used a monitor arm before. I don't know why, but I've just never thought I had the need. I have personally purchased and owned at least 250 monitors over the last 25 years, and anyone that knows me in person, knows I'm a huge display nut.

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But then things changed when I started receiving the fleet of 43-inch ASUS ROG gaming monitors and needed to get them off my desk. I purchased myself a TV stand on wheels which gave me some awesome flexibility with my display, and over two years later here I am... picking myself up an Ergotron HX Monitor Arm.

I've been wanting to play around with a monitor arm for a while, so I thought it was about damn time. I initially purchased the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm for my 43-inch ASUS ROG gaming monitor, but used it with a few different display sizes and weights for the purposes of my own curiosity, and this review.

There are plenty of monitor arms on the market, but I didn't want to just get anything -- I wanted something high quality, that could handle the weight I wanted to put on it, and give me as many features as I could get. This is what led me into the arms of the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm.

The Ergotron HX Monitor Arm is a super-high-quality monitor arm from start to finish, with everything you need in the box, an easy installation that had me up and running in less than half an hour, and flexibility in more ways than one.

I did want the matte black version of the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm, but it was only available at Scorptec -- the Australian e-tailer I purchase my computer goods from -- only had it available in white. Once it was out of the box and installed on my desk and monitor, I realized it didn't matter all that much... I can only see a portion of the monitor stand itself when I'm looking at my monitor.

Buy at Amazon

Ergotron HX Ultrawide Monitor Arm Desk Mount - For Screens 20 to 42 lb

TodayYesterday7 days ago30 days ago
$301.82$301.17$329.00
* Prices last scanned on 12/26/2022 at 11:32 pm CST - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Detailed Look

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In the box, you've got everything you need -- neatly packaged, and ready to go. Ergotron keeps it simple, with no fancy packaging on the outside. Just a plain-ish-looking cardboard box, but it doesn't matter -- this isn't a graphics card or motherboard box that you'd keep.

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Right out of the box, you've got a very Apple-like finish from Ergotron -- all style with the HX Monitor Arm.

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The metal clamp that attaches to your desk is hefty, and feels super-heavy in your hands. You'll need that quality + weight to the clamp and arm, in order to hold a large super-ultrawide or heavy monitor. There's also more mounting hardware and accessories packed away individually, making installation easy.

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Ergotron includes a VESA mount for your monitor, but you'll need to make sure that your monitor is VESA compatible, as you can't just put any monitor onto a monitor arm. You might need a VESA mount adapter, but some monitors include them in the box -- your results will vary here.

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Here you've got the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm and its desk clamp as well as the monitor arm -- baring all in its white design.

Installation, Specs, Marketing

Installation of Ergotron HX Monitor Arm

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The desk clamp and monitor arm look like they'll take hours to build to someone who hasn't done it before, but you'll be surprised at the ease of installation of the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm. You've got the screwdrivers and tools required in the box, and a handful of screws will be required.

You will not need to screw this directly through your desk, so don't worry about that.

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Ergotron's HX Monitor Arm was easy peasy to install and handle the large ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ gaming monitor, a 43-inch 4K 144Hz HDMI 2.1 beast. You can read my review on the ASUS ROG XG43UQ gaming monitor here. I thought I'd have an issue with it, but there was no issues at all with the 43-inch display. I've seen others use the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm with the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey G9 super-ultrawide gaming monitor... something I now want to try now that I've got this kick-ass monitor arm.

Specs + Marketing

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You've got a huge 10-year warranty on the Ergotron HX Desk Monitor Arm, with multiple desk attachment options -- but you won't be getting 3 x 32-inch monitors on the HX Desk Monitor arm, so you'd need individual HX Desk Monitor Arms.

The Constant Force technology gets a big mention here, as it truly does give you a light touch adjustment to your monitor. There's no massive amount of force you need to apply, once you've tweaked the Ergotron HX Desk Monitor Arm to your specific monitor, you're able to move it with ease.

I found this particularly useful between working and gaming where I might slouch back when I'm gaming, and adjust my electronic standing desk.

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Ergotron recommends using a maximum of a 49-inch (Samsung Odyssey G9 for example) which would be absolutely wild on the HX Desk Monitor Arm. I've used a 43-inch ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ gaming monitor on the Ergotron HX Desk Monitor Arm without a problem. Impressive, given that it's a chunky monitor.

Inside of the box, you'll get the HX Arm, Heavy-Duty Tilt Pivot, extension, monitor pivot, desk clamp, grommet mount, and the monitor mounting hardware. It looks like a confusing mess when you open it, especially if you haven't used a monitor arm before... but you'll get it installed in less than 30 minutes.

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Ergotron recommends that the HX Desk Monitor Arm can handle a monitor that weighs up to 8kg, but my ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ weighs 15.5kg and it was fine... I'm typing this review with the ROG Swift PG32UQX gaming monitor, which is also fine and that weighs 11kg.

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Ergotron's engineering is impeccable down to the smallest details, where a screw in the base mount of the arm can be screwed in -- and when this is screwed in, it limits the rotation of the lower section of the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm to 90 degrees on the left, and the right. This means the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm can't turn around too far and damage your wall for example, as it won't pass the end of your desk.

If you are someone who has your desk right up against the wall, normally a monitor arm can't be used as you would be denting and scratching your wall all day and night long. Not with the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm, it's such a powerful little thing, but Ergotron has your back. I didn't use this as the back of the desk -- at least the desk I was using during the purposes of using the monitor arm -- but it is something I want to visit with a desk against the wall soon.

Test System Specs

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ASUS has been a huge help for my GPU test beds with the latest ROG Strix 43-inch gaming monitors sitting in front of me for 80 hours or more per week, offering 43-inch 4K 120/144Hz greatness for my productivity, and gaming.

Ergotron HX Desk Monitor Arm Review: How Did I Live Without It?! 1167

Sabrent has been a gigantic help as well, providing kick ass Rocket 4 Plus and RocketQ NVMe PCIe M.2 SSDs -- with wicked-fast PCIe 4.0 storage with a huge 4TB in capacity -- as well as a huge 8TB SSD to store all of the games installed, and we all know how crazy big games are getting.

Ergotron HX Desk Monitor Arm Review: How Did I Live Without It?! 02

Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

I recently built a new system in a collaboration build with MSI which is detailed in length here, where I compared the flagship MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X and MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X graphics cards against each other at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K.

I've used the same system for 8K benchmarking, ensuring we have enough CPU grunt to handle it.

What's Hot & What's Not

What's Hot

  • Incredibly easy to setup: The Ergotron HX Monitor Arm will take you less than 30 minutes to setup, and once it's done, it's done. After that, you get to enjoy your next-gen monitor and its new ergonomics and useability. If you've been worried it would be hard, Ergotron makes that experience easy.
  • Tremendous build quality: Ergotron isn't messing around here with quality, every single part -- big and small -- you can tell it has some design and engineering effort put into it. This is how and why Ergotron can offer a rather large 10-year warranty.
  • 10-year warranty: I mean, you cannot complain about a 10-year warranty... the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm will outlive your monitor, and could even outlive your next monitor if you upgrade every 3-5 years.
Ergotron HX Desk Monitor Arm Review: How Did I Live Without It?! 513
  • Lots of room in the trunk for junk AKA it handles up to a 49-inch 32:9 Samsung Odyssey G9: This is actually something I want to try... I've reached out to Samsung to see if they'll send me a sample of the Odyssey G9... the gigantic 49-inch 32:9 Super UltraWide gaming monitor. I've got a 43-inch ASUS ROG Strix 4K 144Hz gaming monitor on the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm and it handles it like a champion. But the larger 49-inch monitor... I've got to try it on the monitor arm now.
  • Heavy-duty tilt pivot: You've got the ability to not only throw on a huge monitor, but the heavy-duty tilt pivot lets you put the VESA mount on the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm super-easy... but also lets you tilt the monitor by 15 degrees... which is enough for a great tweak of the pivot of your monitor.
Ergotron HX Desk Monitor Arm Review: How Did I Live Without It?! 518
  • The power of a tiny screw: Ergotron's engineering is impeccable down to the smallest details, where a screw in the base mount of the arm can be screwed in -- and when this is screwed in, it limits the rotation of the lower section of the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm to 90 degrees on the left, and the right. This means the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm can't turn around too far and damage your wall for example, as it won't pass the end of your desk.
  • Up against the wall? Great! If you are someone who has your desk right up against the wall, normally a monitor arm can't be used as you would be denting and scratching your wall all day and night long. Not with the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm, it's such a powerful little thing, but Ergotron has your back. I didn't use this as the back of the desk -- at least the desk I was using during the purposes of using the monitor arm -- but it is something I want to visit with a desk against the wall soon.
  • Cable management: Ergotron gives you some super-useful velcro straps for cable management, and for an OCD freak that loves velcro-strapping everything that I can... this was awesome to see.

What's Not

  • The white color theme... but that's not Ergotron's problem: I just couldn't buy a black version of the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm, and was left with buying the white variant. It doesn't look bad, but I have a near all-black desk and gaming PC + peripherals that doesn't gel so well with the white monitor arm.

Final Thoughts

I never knew that I wanted or needed a high-quality monitor arm in my life, but now I do... and I feel so silly for not having one earlier. I genuinely feel silly for now buying one myself earlier, but now that I have one I won't be giving it up.

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I actually want to dive into more of them and would love to have a monitor arm for each of my displays, and I have around 7-8 that I rotate between systems and tech benches. Ergotron has totally blown me away here, and I think there's a major problem. Now that I've used a high-quality monitor arm, how could I use anything else?

Ergotron has a product here that will completely change the way you use your PC, for all uses: normal use, workstation use, and gaming. It's not just limited to workstation or gaming users, as everybody will want to move their monitor -- you just don't know it yet, not without a monitor arm.

If you have limited desk space and wanted the monitor off your desk, with the ability of movement -- which is so simple at the same time -- then the Ergotron HX Monitor Arm is a simply fantastic product. A no-regrets-changes-your-life purchase, with Ergotron with you for the long haul -- especially when you have a huge 10-year warranty behind you.

Buy at Amazon

Performance

100%

Quality

100%

Features

95%

Value

85%

Overall

95%

The Bottom Line

Ergotron's premium HX Monitor Arm is a heavy-duty mofo that I seriously, very seriously don't know how I lived without it. Damn it, now I need another 3 or 4 of them, they're that good.

TweakTown award
95%

Ergotron HX Ultrawide Monitor Arm Desk Mount - For Screens 20 to 42 lb

TodayYesterday7 days ago30 days ago
$301.82$301.17$329.00
* Prices last scanned on 12/26/2022 at 11:32 pm CST - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering.

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