SilverStone ARM One ARM11SC Monitor Arm Review

SilverStone ARM One ARM11SC Monitor Arm Review

(Also sold as the ScanFX ATC20)
Manufacturer: SilverStone
UK Price: £67.99
US Price: $89.99

With so much brain power and so many column inches used up deliberating the whys and wherefores of the latest big tech products – from £300 graphics cards to the latest all-singing, all-dancing mechanical keyboards – it’s often easy to overlook the little things that can actually make even more difference day to day.

Whether it’s buying a cable holder for your mouse, a monitor riser under which you can store your keyboard or just a decent USB hub, it’s often these ergonomic tweaks that can save the most frustration, and it’s just such a product we’re looking at today.

The SilverStone ARM11SC is an adjustable monitor arm which clamps to your desk and can be used to replace your monitor’s existing stand.

A common enough site in many offices monitor arms can actually be a really big productivity boost for home use too. They eliminate the space taken up by bulky conventional stands yet provide far more adjustability and reach. A particular scenario where they’re useful is if you have a corner desk. The extra reach of an arm means you don’t lose all that depth of desk space by having a monitor stand in the way. What's more, some monitors don’t even offer any adjustment and those that do are often quite limited.

The SilverStone ARM11SC is meant for use with flat panel monitors with standard VESA 75 and 100 mounts (something all but the cheapest monitors should have) and is rated to accommodate panels up to 24in in size, though we successfully tried it with larger panels – the maximum weight it can carry is 10kg. It offers adjustability in all axis so can be tilted up and down, rotated about the three joints in its arm, pushed forward and back and of course height can be adjusted too.

This version of the ARM11 comes with a desk clamp but it can also be bought with a through-desk clamp (ARM11SI) and a wall mount (ARM11SQ).


Taking the ARM11SC out of its box, what’s immediately clear is just how well made it is. The two main arms are machined from aluminium and have a lovely sandblasted finish. These are joined by a sturdy steel clamp and pole for the base and a steel plate for the VESA mount. The business end of a monitor is never going to look elegant but in so far as it’s possible to, SilverStone has helped with the ARM11SC.

Putting the arm together is a largely simple affair punctuated by one moment of fairly severe frustration. The base is easy enough to position and secure onto a desk with its inbuilt clamp, and it’s easy to then screw in the black upright and its silver collar, which is used to adjust the overall height of the arm. The lower arm then just slides onto the pole.


Fitting the upper arm is also relatively simple as you simple remove the existing stand from your monitor and screw on the plate of the arm. Marrying the two sections up is also then a relatively easy process, though it requires a bit of strength and dexterity to lift up the monitor and manhandle the arm into position.


The real headache, however, comes when routing your cables. SilverStone has employed two different systems for this and for a start both are fairly cramped – we found just a single power and video cable was a fairly tight fit, let alone a full complement of connections.

The upper arm’s cable chase has a plastic section that simple slides off, allowing you to position the cables then slide the cover back on. This isn’t so difficult to do, though we did find it would come loose on occasion as the monitor was adjusted – a larger more accommodating retaining section would’ve been preferable.


However this is nothing compared to the chase on the lower arm. Another plastic section is used to secure the cables but here it has to be unscrewed to allow cables to be routed through, and doing this with the arm already assembled is a considerable faff – we actually ended up dismantling the whole arm to do this. Once the panel is fitted the chase is also quite a squeeze.

All told, though, setting the arm up is little more than a half hour affair and the space saving is immediately apparent.

Specifications

• Max. wall mount hole pitch 100 x 100 mm/ 75 x 75 mm (MIS-D 100 / MIS-D 75)
  
• Screw Type M4
  
• Swivel ±90°
  
• Tilt +90° / -20°
  
• Rotate(Pivot) 360°
  
• Support max. weight 2 ~ 10Kg (4.4~22.1lbs) per arm
  
• Support flat panel size ≦24"
  
• Min. Distance To The Wall 97mm
  
• Support desktop thickness 8mm (0.32”)~ 50mm (1.96”)
  
• Extended Arm Provided 2
  
• Net Weight 3.8Kg (8.37Ibs)
  
• Dimensions 500mm (W) x 497mm (H) x 619mm (D)