Before I start I must say that I don't know how Thomann can possibly make any money from these. The desk comes in two very large boxes over 100kg in weight from Germany to the UK all with free delivery... Amazing.
A word of warning though: Due to the weight and size, this desk is shipped as (I presume) freight which means it will take a few weeks and therefore longer than Thomann's normal service. This was not helped by the UK carrier temporarily losing my 100kg boxes!!!
The furniture itself is a two person lift but me and the missus managed it OK. The packaging is seriously heavy duty (three layer corrugated card with nailed on corner protectors). All panels are individualy wrapped. When it came to disposing of the box, I'm not exaggerating when I say we resorted to both a hacksaw and a crow bar to break the box up.
The boxes contain the desk in flat pack form with all the screws etc. The desk itself is constructed from chip board covered in laminate. Some of the panels must be 25mm thick whilst others are thinner. Either way this is clearly a heavy duty piece of kit.
Now to the bad points:
The instructions are terrible. Just four simple, and poorly printed drawings. However, all is not lost. After the initial sinking feeling, this thing turns out to be really easy to construct. And I could have built it with no instructions. It probably took me an hour, and I was taking my time.
Anyone who's built flatpack stuff before should be able to work it out. Still, for those that haven't and for the money it costs and the care that's clearly gone into the rest of the package the instructions are poor.
I was also dismayed to see that you are given only the exact amount of screws and tighteners, as it happens one of these lighteners was dodgy, I got round it, but a few spares would only cost a few pence surely. Lastly despite each box have a signed quality control sheet one of the panels was damaged where a small amount of the laminate had got caught and torn. It doesn't look like shipping damage (nothing could break through those boxes!), just something not noticed at the factory. If left laminate like this will continue to come off and as it happens, the piece in question was on a very visible part on the furniture and actually rather sharp. Quickly sorted with super glue, but again it shouldn't really be the case. Other than this though the build quality is stunning.
The good points:
For the money, this thing oozes quality. It's heavy duty and looks it. Every client will know you are serious about what you do. The keyboard drawer is smooth and seems very strong; with the extra legs extended I imagine it'd take the weight of a person. To be honest, it's probably over engineered but that means it should still be working well and looking good well into the future. The little drawer up top is a handy little bonus to.
All in all, although I cannot give the Zaor 5 stars for the reasons above, I am very happy with the desk and its suits me perfectly for my needs and studio space. It seems to offer a much higher standard than similar units at the lower 'off the shelf' end of the market without costing too much more.
Highly recommended
