Some years ago, I bought a pair of monitor arms. I'd picked up one of those IKEA Jerker desks and wanted to suspend the monitors in mid-air, like something out of a 90s or early-2000s hacker movies where the person types way too fast to navigate a 3D file interface without a mouse. I used that configuration for years, but getting everything set up just right ended up being kind of a nightmare. The arms were heavy and tough to move around. Worse, if I had to take them off for some reason, getting them back in place was a nightmare. I eventually removed them and just used the monitors' built-in stands.

When EchoGear asked whether we might look at some of its monitor arms, though, it got me curious. Has the technology behind monitor arms improved since six or seven years ago? A short visit to the EchoGear home office—located in my home base of Minneapolis, Minnesota—ended with me taking home two of the company's monitor arms to set up in my home environment and compare with my existing gear. Back then, I was working with two monitors. These days I'm running three, for reasons I can't really justify even to myself. To fit my config, EchoGear sent me home with two pieces of hardware: a gas-spring dual-arm mount plus a single-arm unit.