The Duo Standing Desk from Branch Furniture is a fantastic upgrade from the previous Branch Standing Desk, and might even be one of the best standing desk options for your money around today.

The desk has a 275lb lifting capacity, comes in two different sizes, offers one of the most unique controllers I have seen, and provides a ten-year warranty on the tabletop and frame. All of that, for under $450, is an absolute steal.

I was admittedly hesitant when I first saw this price tag, being concerned that there was no way the build quality could have stayed the same from the previous model while also cutting the price. However, I don't know how they did it, but Branch knocked it out of the park with this desk.

Unboxing and First Impressions

One of the first things that I noticed while assembling the Duo Standing Desk is that there is no crossbar, like I have come to expect with nearly every desk frame. Instead, Branch has opted for legs with mounting brackets that bolt into either end of the desk. From the top and sides of the desk, this looks no different - however, from the bottom, there is a rather large hole. It wasn't until a few steps later that I realized this hole allowed the drawer to sneak in without having a gap off the bottom of the desk. In hindsight, that gap now makes much sense, though if I ever wanted to use this set of legs on a different tabletop, (not from Branch) I would have a more challenging time aligning them perfectly. Once I added the drawer, I realized the genius of this design and how no other company could add a drawer through the middle of their desk like Branch can.

The next thing I was shocked by was how much I liked the desk drawer I chose to add to my Duo. I thought it would be a simple drawer like those I have received with other desks. However, this drawer felt nicer, and already had, pre-installed, a felt liner that reassured me that I could tuck things away in here while clearing my desk and not have worries about it getting scratched up - even an iPad or MacBook could be tidied away in this drawer.

Moving on, the final assembly step before flipping the desk right-side up was to add the controller. I am used to seeing buttons, arrows, or a simple up-and-down mechanism. But, much like the Herman Miller (Fully) Jarvis Standing Desk, I got a control paddle instead. It was when I plugged the desk in, after flipping it over, that I became fascinated with this little paddle. Once I plugged the desk in, the paddle revealed a screen in the front, showing that this was not just a place to rest your fingers to pull or push the desk up and down but rather a display reading out the heights as well as a welcome message.

Design and Build Quality

Overall, the design of the Duo Standing Desk is minimalist and straightforward. The desktop itself has rounded, flat edges, and the legs are simple and easily blend in with the surroundings. There are two sizing options, 36 x 24 inches for compact spaces and 48 x 24 for larger spaces. Both sizing options have four options for the desktop and two leg colors. For the top, I had the choice of woodgrain, walnut, white, or charcoal. For the legs, I had the choice between white and charcoal. Because I love the Stormtrooper look, I chose the white top with charcoal legs, which looks stunning.

In addition to the standard base build, I picked up the Desk Drawer and Cable Organizer to round out my setup.

Each piece appeared to be crafted with care and built to last a significant amount of time. I am not concerned about cheap components or parts that may fail after some time, but this will be a tried and true staple in my workspace for some time.

In Use

Over the last couple of months, I have used the Duo Standing Desk a fair amount. So far, I love it. The look is precisely what I was hoping for, as a minimalist desk that I prefer to use with just a laptop in a quiet room. While this desk can handle a more extensive setup, it is so simplistic that it deserves something a bit more minimal.

I have taken many virtual meetings and calls from this desk, with no distractions from other work to bother me. I simply prop my MacBook up using my Moft Adhesive Laptop Stand, throw on any of the best business webcams, continuity camera, or the built-in camera, then I'll sometimes add an accent face light to brighten things up, throw on my AirPods Pro and I'm good to go. I can keep anything I need regularly tucked away in my drawer to help limit distractions by leaving it on the desk but still keeping it within reach.

The cable management solution I chose to add to this desk is good but could be better. It can easily handle some cables and a few power bricks if you decide to put a monitor or some other accessories on this desk, though it's not as great as some of the alternatives I have seen, such as my favorite cable management solution that I have on my Ergonofis Shift Standing Desk.

Final Verdict

For the money, there isn't much more you could ask for in a motorized standing desk than what you can find in the Duo Standing Desk by Branch Furniture. This desk is high quality, beautiful, and easy to use. It has built-in storage, height presets, and excellent colorways, all at a great price.

Your website is the virtual storefront that invites visitors to explore, engage, and be captivated by your brand. But building a website that truly stands out can often feel like an insurmountable task, requiring technical and design skillset. 

That's where Friday steps in, turning the daunting task into a relatively straightforward one. With its innovative approach to web creation, Friday website builder revolutionizes the way we build websites. 

In this review, we take an in-depth look at Friday website builder’s features, security, and pricing to help you make an informed decision.

What is Friday?

Friday website builder is a user-friendly platform that allows individuals and businesses to create professional websites without the need for coding knowledge or technical skill. 

It provides a range of intuitive tools and templates to streamline the website creation process, enabling you to design and customize your sites according to your unique preferences and requirements. 

With Friday, you can add and edit content, incorporate multimedia elements, optimize for mobile devices, and publish your websites with just a few clicks.

Friday website builder features 

During my testing of Friday's website builder, I discovered a wide range of powerful features that enhanced my website building journey. Firstly, the platform provided robust ecommerce capabilities, allowing me to effortlessly set up an online store, manage products, and inventory. 

The developer mode feature allows the flexibility to edit and add code and make customizations according to my specific requirements. The built-in blog builder offered a seamless way to create engaging blog posts and share my thoughts and ideas with my audience. 

I was also impressed with the comprehensive web analytics feature that provided valuable insights into visitor behavior and helped me optimize my website for better performance. 

With the option to use a custom domain, you can choose any name for your website to add a professional and personalized touch. Friday's SEO tools proved to be invaluable in optimizing a website for search engines and increasing its visibility online. 

The inclusion of  SSL security feature helps to keep visitors' data protected. Friday uses AWS hosting which ensures reliable performance and scalability for your websites. 

Moreover, the platform's mobile optimization feature automatically adapted my test website to different devices, ensuring a seamless user experience for mobile users. The unlimited bandwidth feature allows the handling of high traffic volumes without any concerns. 

Friday tools 

Friday website builder provides a range of powerful tools to enhance the process of creating and customizing websites. One of the standout tools provided by Friday is the site theme tool. This tool allows you to choose from a selection of themes and customize them to suit your preferences. You can easily modify the font, add images, adjust the site layout, create rows and columns, and play with colors to create a visually appealing website that aligns with your brand or personal style.

The pages and popups tools offered by Friday simplify the process of customizing your site. With these tools, you can add different types of pages such as a home page, service page, about us page, FAQ page, blog page, and more. These tools also provide various settings that allow you to rename pages, hide or show them in the page navigation, convert pages to dynamic pages, and perform basic search engine optimization (SEO) for each page.

Friday's widget tool is another valuable asset for website creation. The tool let me add various elements to my website, including text, images, maps, icons, media sliders, photo galleries, HTML codes, spacers, and contact forms. The convenience of this tool lies in its drag-and-drop functionality, allowing you to effortlessly place and arrange widgets wherever you want them on your site.

To manage and enhance the content on your website, Friday offers a content library manager with tools such as a media manager and a connected data CMS (Content Management System). The connected data CMS allows you to edit and add images, text, and other information about your business. Additionally, Friday provides a website personalization tool, which allows you to create popups, add special event offers or promotions, display service hours, and include call-to-action elements on your website. This tool also enables you to create personalized messages from scratch, tailoring the content to suit your specific audience or goals.

For those looking to build an ecommerce store, Friday offers an ecommerce tool that simplifies the process. With this tool, you can easily create and manage your online store. The ecommerce manager provides a store management dashboard where you can view sales, manage your product catalog, and access reports to gain insights into your store's performance. Also, Friday's ecommerce tool allows you to connect your online store to popular sales channels such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, expanding your reach and potential customer base.

If you're interested in maintaining a blog on your website, Friday's blogging tool enables you to add new blog posts, manage existing posts, edit the layout of your blog, and even import blog posts from external sources. When publishing a new blog post, Friday provides settings that allow you to customize the publishing date, post URL, post title, post thumbnail, and post tags, ensuring that your blog integrates seamlessly with the rest of your website.

To optimize your website for search engines and fine-tune its settings, Friday offers a comprehensive SEO and setting tool. This tool provides a range of features to enhance your website's performance and visibility. With Friday's SEO and setting tool, you can add and customize site icons, install SSL certificates to secure your website, set up Google Analytics to track visitor data and insights, implement URL redirection for improved navigation, and enable backup functionality to safeguard your website files. 

Additionally, this tool allows you to add custom HTML code, change your site's language settings, set up Progressive Web Apps (PWA) for enhanced user experiences, and create custom 404 error pages. 

Furthermore, the SEO aspect of the tool enables you to manage technical SEO elements, such as enabling or disabling the "no index" tag for the entire website, adding site meta titles, creating custom sitemaps and robots.txt files, optimizing site keywords, and enabling lazy loading of images and videos to improve site performance.

How easy is Friday to use?

Friday is designed to be user-friendly and easy to use, even for individuals with limited technical expertise. The platform prioritizes simplicity and intuitive navigation, making it accessible to beginners and experienced users alike.

One key aspect contributing to Friday's ease of use is its drag-and-drop functionality. You can effortlessly add and rearrange elements on your websites by simply dragging and dropping widgets, images, text, and other components onto the desired location. This eliminates the need for complex coding or technical knowledge, streamlining the website creation process.

Additionally, Friday offers a visually-oriented interface that allows you to see real-time changes as you make adjustments to your websites. This instant visual feedback provides a clear understanding of how the site will look and function, empowering you to make informed design decisions.

The platform also provides a user-friendly dashboard that serves as a central hub for managing various aspects of the website. From this dashboard, you can access different tools and features, navigate through pages, customize themes, and track website analytics. The organized layout and intuitive controls contribute to a seamless user experience.

 Friday pricing: Is it good value for money? 

Friday's pricing structure, with a single plan starting at $25 per month and subsequently increasing to $50 after the initial month, offers a reasonable value for money considering the range of features and tools available within the platform. 

This enables you to create and customize your websites with ease, while also benefiting from ongoing 24/7 customer support and updates to enhance your online presence.

Having one price plan may be limiting for some individuals, especially for those on a tight budget.

Security

Friday prioritizes the security of its users' websites by offering two essential security features: SSL certificates and backups.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates are crucial for establishing a secure connection between a website and its visitors. SSL certificates ensure that sensitive information remains confidential and protected from potential hackers or malicious actors by encrypting the data transmitted between the user's browser and the website's server. Friday allows you to install SSL certificates, thus enabling secure communication and instilling trust in visitors who access your websites.

In addition to SSL certificates, Friday provides a backup feature to safeguard your website data. Regular backups are vital in the event of unforeseen circumstances such as data loss, server issues, or accidental changes that may compromise the website's functionality or content. By enabling backups, you can restore your websites to a previous state and recover lost data, minimizing potential disruptions and preserving the integrity of your online presence.

By offering SSL certificates and backup functionality, Friday aims to provide a secure environment for your websites. This contributes to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your data and helps protect against potential security vulnerabilities or data loss incidents.

Customer support

Friday offers customer support through various channels, including a comprehensive knowledge base and email support. These options ensure that you have access to the assistance you need when encountering any issues or requiring guidance while using the platform.

The knowledge base serves as a valuable resource, providing you with a collection of articles, tutorials, and frequently asked questions that cover a wide range of topics. It offers step-by-step instructions, troubleshooting guides, and detailed explanations of features, empowering you to find solutions to your queries independently. The knowledge base serves as a self-help tool, allowing you to access information and guidance at your convenience.

For more personalized support, Friday provides email support through two dedicated email addresses: support@findfriday.com and hello@findfriday.com. You can reach out to the support team with your inquiries, concerns, or technical issues. The support team is committed to providing prompt and helpful responses, addressing your queries, and providing guidance to ensure a smooth experience while using the platform.

By offering both a comprehensive knowledge base and email support, Friday ensures that you have access to the resources you need to overcome challenges and make the most of the platform's features. 

Is Friday website builder right for you? 

Determining whether Friday website builder is the right choice for you depends on various factors such as your website creation needs, technical expertise, budget, and desired level of customization. 

However, if you are looking for a user-friendly platform with drag-and-drop functionality, a range of customizable themes, and tools for adding pages, widgets, and blog posts, along with ecommerce capabilities, then Friday website builder could be a suitable choice that caters to your requirements and empowers you to create and manage a professional-looking website with relative ease. 

Friday's comprehensive SEO and settings options and 24/7 customer support through a knowledge base and email assistance could also be the deciding qualities for your choice of website builder.

• Here's a list of the best small business website builders on the market 

There is no such thing as the present, at least not in any way humans can perceive it. By the time you’ve acknowledged a fixed moment, it has already passed, leaving you looking back on a fresh memory, as it falls like sand through your fingertips. Perhaps this is why we idolize the present. There’s no time like the present, after all, and to live in the here and now is perhaps the most often-coveted way to live life. Most never achieve this, of course, as it seems the most human thing of all to be constantly looking forwards and backwards, simultaneously haunted by the past, and pre-grieving a future that has yet to arrive. This is the all too familiar valley in which Oxenfree 2 sits, and much like the first game, it understands that true horror comes from within.

Oxenfree 2’s first steps are instantly enthralling. Smartly, you now play as Riley, a 30-something trapped in the strange space between youth and maturity. As such, the dialogue and characterizations are much more authentic from the get-go. It’s much harder to write teenagers, and it’s immediately apparent that the developers have more to say with the older protagonist of this sequel. Riley is back in the town where she grew up, where you join her on her first day of a new job. She’s tasked with setting transmitter arrays up in the hills, to monitor the volatile electromagnetic readings that have been cropping up. The specifics of this aren’t important. If you played the first game, you know exactly where this is going.

In many ways, Oxenfree 2 smartly ties into its predecessor, but mostly, it’s all too familiar. As the night progresses, you’ll bump into strange tears in time, possessed teenagers, and giant triangles made from threads of electricity that pulse and shimmer as they hang high in the sky. You have your radio, which can be tuned into the spooky goings on around town. The main differences this time around are that you are joined by a single NPC companion, and that the area you’re challenged to navigate is vastly larger than before.

The town of Camena is, visually at least, extremely similar to that of Edwards Island. It’s all draped in a thick fog, with old buildings and forests to move through as you go from transmitter to transmitter. There’s new options for traversal, with climbing making up the bulk of how you get from A to B. These larger environments, while absolutely gorgeous,, are somewhat empty, seemingly to give you more time to wander and chat with the various characters that you can reach on your walkie talkie.

The walkie-talkie is a welcome addition indeed, as it allows you to hail one of seven different channels that range from a ghostly fisherman to a radio station that makes you play games. Then there’s Jacob, your companion for the majority of the game’s runtime. He’s a down-on-his-luck handyman that honestly never quite justified his presence. Too many genuinely serene moments are spoiled by his rambling outbursts. Honestly, it may have been better to have Riley carry out her mission solo, with the extra cast added via the walkie-talkie.

The main reason Oxenfree made such an impression over seven years ago was for its dialogue system, which gave a very convincing illusion of choice while you slowly unraveled the core mystery. Things are less effective in Oxenfree 2, with less player agency, and a story that shows its hand far too early. There are very few twists and turns, if any, and the final choice isn’t quite worth all of the build-up. Where the narrative does succeed is in the smaller stories that are slowly parcelled out via the walkie-talkie. You can choose to advance these at your own pace, and while the side quests you’re sent on rarely add up to more than simple fetch quests, the dialogue that surrounds them is often stellar.

For all of its sky-portals, time travel and other-wordly visuals, Oxenfree 2 does show a surprising amount of restraint. When I opened the map for the first time, and saw just how giant the world was, I was worried that the sequel would focus on a much bigger story. Thankfully, this is not the case. Puzzles are few and far between, meaning they all have just the right level of impact. The scares are much less frequent than in the first game too, and while this definitely makes Oxenfree 2 much less of a horror game, it does make things more memorable when the ghosts do come out of hiding.  

While the sci-fi horror aesthetics certainly continue to give the series a strong identity, it’s the various flashbacks and visions of Riley’s potential future that really leave a lasting impression. This is a game that really understands that fear is more effective when grounded in the everyday. 

Every character you come across is stuck in some sense, be that by literally being caught between worlds, or on the precipice of major life events that require leaps of faith to overcome. Of course, the sky being sliced open to reveal an outpouring of vengeful spirits is spooky as all hell, but it’s nothing when compared to the existential horror that aging springs upon us all.

For all of the features that aim to set Oxenfree 2 apart, it does end up being disappointingly familiar. The core themes are the same as in Oxenfree, and the mystery feels over before it gets going. Because of its similarity to its predecessor, Oxenfree 2 does little to surprise. 

You’re always one step ahead of Riley and Jacob as they uncover the same forces at play that ravaged Edwards Island. More choices could have mitigated this, as could slightly more variety in the conversation options. By the time the ending does come, you’re left with the sense that you’ve been through all of it before. Perhaps that’s the point, towards the end a character even wonders out loud about the nature of endings in general, and whether they can ever really be satisfying. 

Oxenfree 2 tells a decent enough story that ties in smartly with the ending to the first game. After seven years however, there was a real chance to expand things slightly, by doubling down on the things that worked, and giving a new perspective to the static-drenched cosmic horror that unfolds. Instead, Oxenfree 2 is more of the same, with the same frustrating slow traversal, and occasionally clunky dialogue. It doesn’t quite do enough to justify the series as one that needs more stories in its universe, but if you loved the vibe and mystery of the first trip, you’ll likely find plenty to enjoy here too. It’s constantly haunted by the acclaim lavished upon its predecessor, and by the obligation to prove Oxenfree as a world that matters. The result is stuck between the past and the future. It’s messy, sometimes scary, and almost always beautiful, which is perhaps, exactly what it needs to be. 

Accessibility features 

The accessibility options in Oxenfree 2 are about as basic as you can get. There are options for larger text, and an alternative font, but other than that, there isn’t anything else on offer. For a game as visually complex as Oxenfree 2, and one with visual puzzles, more options should certainly have been implemented.

How we reviewed

We played Oxenfree 2 over the course of two nights, one playthrough for each. There’s three major endings to get, we managed two, before deciding that a third wasn’t worth another playthrough. There’s plenty of side content, and we reckon there’s still a lot of dialogue options and side characters we missed even after playing through the main story twice. The first playthrough was more of a main path affair, with the following day spent scouring the map for new characters, and mysteries to solve. 

If you're looking for more soulful, story-driven titles, our list of the best indie games has you covered. Alternatively, if you want to cast your net a little wider, our collection of the best RPGs is full of great stories and memorable characters.

Friska has been on our radar for quite some time as one of the best standing desk providers right now.

It offers several model options, many of which we have covered (more on that later), providing fantastic customization when it comes to desktop options and features. 

For example, this desk has four frame color options, 18 desktop options, seven desktop size variations, an option to add a memory switch, an option to add cable holes, an option to add executive cable ports, an option for a cable slot, cable management tray, end caps, lockable drawer, storage, power socket, USB-A charger, USB-A, and USB-C Charger, surge protected power lead, a wireless charger, LED Lighting kit, monitor arms, castors, cable spine, CPU holder, and then there is the option to add on a standing mat or balance board, Ergonomic chair, sound deadening screen - all adding up to a total of over 5,654,656,000 unique combinations just in building the desk.

Unboxing and First Impressions

I was able to unbox and build my Friska Standing Desk with Bluetooth in just under an hour - quite a long time, given my experience. Part of this was because of some confusion in the directions - and part of this was because there were just so many pieces. However once assembled, this desk looked great, and was precisely what I had designed.

One thing I noticed right away though is that the Bluetooth addition still feels like an afterthought. A lead from the main desk assembly gets plugged into what looks almost like a flash drive with a CAT-6 plug, which functions as the Bluetooth node. While I have tested other desks with Bluetooth, or even Wi-Fi integrations, this is the first time I have seen it done this way.

Design and Build Quality

We know that Friska makes fantastic desks, as TechRadar Pro has tested its older model, the Stockholm Standing Desk, as well as the Stockholm Micro, and the Stockholm Corner Desk, all of which have received high ratings and great remarks from our editors. What makes this desk unique, however, is the Bluetooth functionality - but it still has the excellent build quality, sturdy frame, and quality materials of the other Friska Desks have that we have tested.

This desk has an over 260lb lifting capacity, a great height range, a controller with four height presets, and a digital height readout. While we chose to keep things relatively simple for this build, Friska does help simplify customizing the desk. All of the options I previously mentioned make this a desk that you can design to function just about any way you want, with whatever accessories and add-ons would benefit your workflow.

In Use

I have been able to use the Friska Stockholm over the last few weeks, and overall I am pretty impressed. This desk is sturdy and fast when lifting or lowering the desktop. There is a slight delay that I have noticed when using the controller - which isn't noticeable if I use the desk for extended periods (as I get used to it quickly) - but I see a slight lag if I switch back and forth between other desks.

I have been able to push up on this desk, drop boxes I am unpacking, and overall be rough with the build, and I have had zero issues with feeling like it was going to fall or was unsteady in any way.

This desk is also easy to clean and is scratch-resistant. With an quick wipe, I can get all the dirt from the day off without concern about marking up the desk or having something that causes damage.

Final Verdict

Adding Bluetooth to the already excellent Friska Stockholm Standing Desk has further enhanced its overall functionality. As expected, the build quality is fantastic, and the overall experience of using this desk is excellent. This desk is fantastic for the price, touting amazing customization with high quality.