from Hacker News

Teenage Engineering Field Desk

by nikhizzle on 2/8/23, 3:24 PM with 53 comments

• by rfwhyte on 2/8/23, 7:08 PM

  Teenage Engineering is fast becoming the official brand of vain idiots with too much money and too little common sense.

  I mean $1600 USD for a few bits of aluminum and a piece of plywood?! This thing would be overpriced relative to manufacturing costs if it cost $160, yet Teenage Engineering have slapped an entire extra digit onto the end of the price.

  TE literally made ONE good product over a decade ago (The original OP-1) and have just been milking every last ounce of goodwill from the market since then with their overpriced, overhyped toys and "Designs."

  I'll also never forgive them for jacking up the price of the original OP-1 well into it's lifecycle (When by all rights manufacturing costs have gone down and it should be CHEAPER) just because the used market was hot. Just sleazy, greedy, pompous pricks.

• by andrewmcwatters on 2/9/23, 2:00 AM

  Too small.

  I work on an extra long IKEA LINNMON 16353 in black-brown, which I believe now is the IKEA LAGKAPTEN 604.870.17 at 78 3/4x23 5/8 ".[1]

  After over a decade, the cheap veneer is wearing down in inelegant, but a charming "used" fashion.

  The funny thing is, if I wanted this desk, I could just go down to the Home Depot or better yet, a woodworker specialty store and bolt an aluminum framing system to plywood I can get cut at the IKEA LAGKAPTEN dimensions above, and have a superior product.[2]

  Seriously, if you want this at nearly a 10th of the cost, just go to a local woodworker store, buy some RTD plywood, or the plywood of your choosing, and search for an aluminum framing system and buy that and bolt it to the thing.

  That's seriously what they're selling you.

  Actually, what they're really selling you is their aluminum framing system. That's what you're actually buying. The plywood is an afterthought.

  [1]: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lagkapten-tabletop-black-brown-...

  [2]: https://www.homedepot.com/list/view/details/shared/31f43060-...

• by graypegg on 2/8/23, 10:36 PM

  I've always thought it was weird that their store has more SKUs for merch than the actual things they make. 1600$ for a desk, that looks like this, really just confirms to me that they consider themselves an art house/brand first. Which is OK! Just not for me, or even nearly my budget.

• by cramjabsyn on 2/9/23, 12:25 AM

  Please stop promoting TE.

  What once was an interesting company making unique instruments has become an overpriced brand pushing useless and objectively bad “designer” products.

• by trynewideas on 2/8/23, 7:02 PM

  I went in expecting a $1,000 folding table and somehow got a $1,600 non-folding table. Teenage Engineering is always surpassing my loftiest expectations.

• by iamjackg on 2/8/23, 6:41 PM

  I love, love, love Teenage Engineering's design and they create really cool products, but this seems too crazy a price point even for them.

  When they released the TX-6 mixer for $1199 I almost understood their reasoning, since pro audio equipment has always been overpriced, and they clearly put a lot of thought into it and it had a somewhat unique set of features, and most of all it was beautifully designed, but this... This is plywood on an aluminum frame. What's unique about this? Maybe I'm finally just too removed from the target market. Could somebody help me understand if there's something I'm missing?

• by throwaway675309 on 2/8/23, 9:43 PM

  Is this what it finally takes for people to realize that the emperor was naked all along?

  That desk is positively one of the ugliest things I've ever seen, make sure you use it in an office with a great deal of stress inducing cheap strobe fluorescent lighting, and place your cheese grater Mac Pro on it.

• by cratermoon on 2/8/23, 3:53 PM

  Spoiler: a formica-on-plywood desk, 1195 mm/47", 770 mm/30.5", 750 mm/30" with a max load of 75 kgs / 165 lbs is $1,599. And you have to assemble it yourself. And pay for shipping.

  Ikea's KULLABERG Desk, pine, Width: 43 1/4" Depth: 27 1/2" Height: 29 1/2", is $199.00

• by ridiculous_fish on 2/8/23, 8:38 PM

  Back when desks were sold out everywhere ("remote learning"), I built a small desk for a family member using piping and a workbench. Total cost was maybe $65 at Home Depot. I'm not very handy, but this was easy and satisfying to build. It's sturdy enough to stand on and looks great.

  A photo of the end result: https://imgur.com/a/jKrBm2D

  Plans I followed: https://www.housebyhoff.com/2015/04/diy-piping-table/#/

• by Pils on 2/8/23, 8:06 PM

  Reminiscent of the 606 shelving system Vitsoe produces. Given the section dedicated to the desk's "Field Rail," I assume TE is going to release a couple more projects using it as part of some modular system. A brand with similar cult status, Snow Peak, revealed their own modular office concept[0] around a year ago, so I'm guessing that Teenage Engineering is planning similar things.

  [0] https://www.acquiremag.com/lifestyle/snow-peak-tuguca

• by gamblor956 on 2/8/23, 8:07 PM

  Looking at HomeDepot to see how much it would cost to build something similar myself, it would be about $250 for the material (at MSRP prices), so probably about $100 at wholesale prices.

  You would have to cut the aluminum and the plywood to size, but otherwise the labor is the same.

  Which makes it just like Blue Apron and all those other meal delivery companies: you're paying through the nose to avoid the easiest part of the project, gathering the supplies.

• by notJim on 2/8/23, 10:23 PM

  Has anyone built a desk with modular rails like this (perhaps out of 8020)? I won't be buying this, but I like that idea specifically. I have a bunch of stuff attached to my desk through various clamps/screws/3M stuff, and the modular rail idea seems like it could really clean things up.

• by Archit3ch on 2/8/23, 7:11 PM

  Me before looking at the price: "That's a $2k table if I ever saw one."

  It belongs in the background of a scene from Succession.

• by LelouBil on 2/9/23, 12:13 AM

  I just don't understand what kind of company Teenage Engineering is.

  I learned about them from music YouTube channels but they also make desks apparently?

• by rainbowzootsuit on 2/8/23, 11:12 PM

  Looks like proprietary extrusion similar to 80/20 t-slot extrusion in function. You can get it in generics now (amazon / ali express) or from the likes of McMaster.

  Going with McMaster prices for quad slot and by the inch puts the frame with hardware at around $500 by my estimate.

  Probably another $100 for the top if your having to get material and do the laminate yourself.

• by MrMan on 2/8/23, 7:02 PM

  hate, hate Teenage Engineering but I love this approach to humiliating your customers who deserve it if they bought the OP-1

• by pengaru on 2/8/23, 7:52 PM

  Is TE affiliated with Juicero by any chance?

• by mrexroad on 2/8/23, 9:39 PM

  Given current lack of availability and astronomically high price of Baltic/Finnish birch (or any euro ply, apple ply equivalent)… the $1.6k price is almost expected. But still. Sheesh.

• by notJim on 2/8/23, 9:33 PM

  It's wild, it's basically an Ikea desk but for $1600. I guess IKEA doesn't have the cool machined rails and stuff, but not clear what they're going to do with that.

• by pipeline_peak on 2/9/23, 3:53 AM

  This reminds me of something Jean Girard from Talladega nights would use to draw out some master plan.

  “Foolish American, you couldn’t understand the genius of overpriced Nordic engineering!”

• by faefox on 2/14/23, 4:23 PM

  If I were to walk into someone's home or office and see this desk I would immediately make some very unflattering assumptions about that person.

  Teenage Engineering has officially jumped the shark.

• by iancmceachern on 2/11/23, 3:36 AM

  This is the definition of bad design. It's overcomplicated, not simple, it's overengineered, not elegant, it's worse than a regular desk, and it's made of materials that will simply not last at a price point where you could buy a real nice piece.

• by Gravityloss on 2/8/23, 3:37 PM

  Nice. Designers understand structures.