There was a time when I thought I was a pretty tidy person, where my desk was nice and neat and I had all my items organized in their place. That kind of all changed however when I had kids and changed even more when I started sharing my workspace with the wife. What was once neat and organized became a desk full of papers, cables, miscellaneous gadgets, and clutter. I needed something to organize my space again and who would have thought that by adding something like a computer monitor stand, I could regain my space back. With that said, Understands sent me their ‘The Ray‘ computer monitor stand to look at and just to get it out of the way, I love it.
Understands’ The Ray is just one of a several computer monitor stands they make. I just chose this one because it comes with a built in storage compartment and looked like something I could use to organize my USB hub and all the cables I had running from it.
For starters, The Ray looks like a miniature wooden table or entertainment stand. It’s made of premium Baltic birch plywood and lined in cork for a natural, non-slide storage surface. The design is inspired by Scandinavian style giving it a really clean, minimalist look that will look good on any desk setup.
The large storage drawer pretty much takes up the entire volume of the The Ray and is removable to make it easier for you setup what you want in it before putting it back in. The rear of the drawer has two felt lined openings that help grip whatever cables you’ll feed through there so they stay put. There’s also an opening on the back of the stand to accommodate those cables. Like I said above, the drawer is lined in cork and it really does keep items in place.
I put my USB hub and a bunch of cables I normally have plugged in, into the drawer. I also placed all my loose flash drives, SD card readers, and miscellaneous items. The Ray also has a handy full width removable pen tray that I use to hold my stylus for my drawing tablet as well as a couple real pens.
What’s neat about The Ray is that if you own an Apple iMac, you can actually slide the base of the iMac into this little slot on the back of The Ray. This elevates the iMac a few inches to a more desirable viewing height. Of course if you’re like me and don’t have an iMac, it’s perfectly acceptable to place your monitor on top of The Ray. You do lose a bit of space on the top of the monitor stand, but in my case, it didn’t affect me much because I gained so much more space thanks to the storage drawer.
Also, if you do have an iMac, there’s some hidden storage underneath for you wireless keyboard. You can easily slide it under the stand and hide it away when not in use. My keyboard however doesn’t fit under the stand, but my drawing tablet does so at least now, that’s out the way too and I finally gain some desk space back for writing.
I will say, my experience with Understands’ The Ray as been very positive, the question is do you need a computer monitor stand? While not necessarily needed, I will say that I now highly recommend it one. For me, it freed up so much usable desk space for me and now I’m able to hide a lot of my clutter. It was starting to look like an eyesore and made it very difficult to feel comfortable in my own space. Now, everything on my desk has its place and when I’m done, it all gets put away and I feel much more organized.
So with that said, if you’re like me and have a desk that’s full of clutter, regardless if you have an iMac or PC, Understands makes a solution for you to get your workspace back in order. Mine just happened to be their ‘The Ray’ solution. What’s right for me might not be right for you, but again, Understands seems to make something for everyone, so check them out.
