After I got my Asus VH236H and then moved my tower and added my Dell 2005FPW into the mix, I found my desk space a bit lacking.  The solution?  A dual monitor stand!

Note: The above picture came from signalconditioningsolutions.com.

Based on reviews and price, I decided to pick up a Planar 997-5253-00 dual monitor stand.  It arrived yesterday in a briefcase-sized box, which I promptly tore into.  In my excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the stand still in the box, but it was very well packed; serious attention was paid to shipping this thing safely.  Setup was very quick, taking only about 15 minutes or so.  The range of adjustment on this stand is impressive, which I was glad to see; since I’m running two different sized monitors (a 23″ and a 20″), being able to fine tune the positioning of the monitors was essential to get things looking just right.

This is one heck of a beefy stand.  Even with the 23″ Asus near the edge of the arm, and the 20″ Dell just a couple of inches from the edge as well, everything is quite stable.  The stand doesn’t rock at all, and it’s obvious I’m no where near pushing the weight limit on this thing.  With the exception of the adjustment knobs and sleeves for the arms, everything is high-grade metal.  The central pole is plenty tall for my needs, but if you plan on attaching a 24″ monitor in portrait mode it may be a little too short.  Putting a thick book under the stand should be all the boost you need.

Overall, this is a great dual monitor stand.  It is a smart alternative to the popular Ergotron brand, with comparable quality for a lot less money.  It has definitely freed up some space on my desktop, and looks much classier than two mismatching monitor stands.  As you can see in the picture below, I still have some wire management and speaker placement to do, and I still need to reset the brightness and contrast on the Dell…it no longer retains settings when it gets unplugged -_-;;.  Anyway, I’ll post a follow-up review in a week or so with better pictures and final impressions.  Despite being set up for under 24 hours at this point, I would recommend this stand to anyone currently using a dual monitor setup.

The Planar 997-5253-00 can be bought from buy.com for only $89.99.