We Tested Secretlab’s On-Stage Standard

Introduction

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Anyone who is invested in the pro scene of any competitive game will know that some pros can be extremely meticulous about their setup. And if you look at the comments on the Reddit thread showcasing Ropz measuring his desk height with a ruler, you’ll see that even regular players can be thrown off if something isn’t quite ‘right’. Knowing this, Secretlab created the On-Stage Standard (OSS). This is a suite of products designed so that players can position their setup in exactly the same way, every single time. We’ve put these products to the test and will tell you all about our experiences.

Why it matters

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Being consistently good at any game or sport comes down to multiple factors. Obviously, you need skills. And you need to train and maintain those skills. But beyond that, your mental state also has a massive influence on your performance. If you want to play at your best, you need to be 100% locked in, physically and mentally.

For this reason, pros are also, generally speaking, really meticulous about their gear and setup. They want to focus on their performance, and nothing else. If anything is off or even just feels off, it can distract from what really matters: the game itself.

The mental effect of playing on a setup that you’re not used to can have great consequences.

Having your monitor a couple of centimeters further away from what you’re normally used to can cause your brain to snap out of the zone, for example. Imagine you lose an easy fight. It happens to everyone. But, instead of moving on like you normally would and thinking ‘everyone can whiff’, your mind starts to wander. You might start to think ‘did I miss because the monitor is too far away from me?’

Even if the monitor position wasn’t to blame, things like these can cause you to lose focus. And if you’re playing to win, you don’t want to be thinking about whether or not your monitor should be placed differently. You don’t want your brain to be focusing on anything other than the game itself. Anything else can cost you precious kills, and even the game itself.

Knowing this, Secretlab’s OSS is anything but a gimmick. Being able to set up your gaming space in exactly the same way no matter where you are is an advantage for competitive players.

The current lineup

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Secretlab currently offers four products under their On-Stage Standard umbrella:

• The Secretlab MAGPAD Desk Mat (On-Stage Standard Edition) (newly released)
• The Secretlab InfinitePrecision Armrests (On-Stage Standard) (newly released)
• The Secretlab MAGNUS Pro Sit-to-Stand desk
• The Secretlab TITAN Evo chair

Let’s briefly go over the existing products before taking a closer look at the new additions.

TITAN Evo

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The TITAN Evo is Secretlab’s flagship gaming chair. If you see a Secretlab chair being used in a pro gaming tournament, it’ll be the TITAN Evo. It’s a great gaming chair that’s available with a variety of different finishes. And, perhaps most importantly, it can be adjusted in all the right ways.

The newly released InfinitePrecision Armrests can be added to any currently existing TITAN Evo chair, as they simply replace the old armrests. If you want to learn more about the TITAN Evo, you can always read our dedicated review on it.

MAGNUS Pro

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The MAGNUS Pro is a sit-to-stand desk with a height range between 650 and 1,250mm. It can be adjusted to the millimeter, which means that users can very easily get the desk to a height that suits them exactly. Secretlab also has a wide variety of add-ons (such as monitor arms, cable management options, and so on) that users can purchase to further customize their experience.

The newly released MAGPAD OSS Edition attaches to the desktop via a magnetic system and can be applied to any MAGNUS Pro desk.

If you wish to read more about the MAGNUS Pro, you can read our in-depth review on it.

InfinitePrecision Armrest

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What are they?

Standard Secretlab armrests are 4D-adjustable. You can change the height, width, depth, and swivel angle. However, the height adjustment on previous Secretlab armrests happened in steps. This meant that, if your preferred height was somewhere in between steps, you were out of luck. Getting the armrests to line up exactly with a desk surface also wasn’t always possible due to this.

Because of the fact that armrest position is very important to certain gamers, Secretlab has now released these InfinitePrecision Armrests. These can be precisely positioned across the entire height range, and they come with a display to let you their exact position.

Installing the armrests

The InfinitePrecision Armrests can be attached to any TITAN Evo chair. Everything that you need to do so comes right in the box.

As expected from Secretlab, all of the box contents are neatly presented and perfectly stored away. Installing the armrests takes only a couple of minutes, and can easily be done by one person.

Initially, I was concerned that the InfinitePrecision Armrests would feel bulky or get in the way of how I normally use the chair, but that’s not the case. There’s a little bump where the control console is, but that did not get in my way when using the chair. Aside from that bump, they look like regular Secretlab armrests. They also use the same Cloudswap system, which is a bonus. This means that you can freely swap out armrest covers between the InfinitePrecision ones and the regular ones.

Before using the armrests, you need to install two supplied batteries.

Using the armrests

Using the armrests is extremely simple. You turn on the display, calibrate the armrests, and from that point on the display will show you the exact position of your armrest, in increments of 0.1. These increments are equal to 0.6mm in real life. The reason why the display doesn’t show the actual millimeters is because the armrests are capable of sub-millimeter adjustments, and these increments were too small for anyone to use the armrests consistently.

The display turns off after a while, but if you adjust your armrest’s height while the display is off, it will still show the correct reading once you turn it back on again. To put it simply: the display is just a visual indicator that tells you the exact position of your armrest.

The actual process of changing the height is a smooth one. If you’re really going for an ultra-precise position, you may want to use two hands so that you can accurately position the armrest, but more general adjustments can easily be made with one hand.

One small thing to note: Secretlab tells you to calibrate the armrests using your desk height as a reference point, but you can also slide them all the way down and then calibrate them so that the lowest point is 0. That’s what I did after a while, and I ended up preferring that.

Build quality

The armrests feel pretty much exactly the same as the regular ones to me. I place my full weight on my armrests when I stand up out of my chair, and the height has remained the same over the past couple of weeks. As such, I’m inclined to say that this is a reliable system.

Everything else is what you’d expect out of a Secretlab armrest. The whole thing is nicely finished, easily adjustable, and the included PU foam tops feel soft.

On the outside of the armrests, there’s a translucent cover for the circuit board and battery compartment. When the display is active, two LEDs light up on that circuit board. This cover comes off easily if you want it to, but it doesn’t rattle or anything like that.

How useful is it?

We’ve established that the armrests are well-made, but the million dollar question is obviously ‘how useful are they?’ And the answer to that is ‘it depends’.

If you’ve never given the position of your armrests a single thought, then this will not be a product for you. It’s cool to have, but it doesn’t serve any purpose outside of the fact that the height can be precisely tuned.

If you’re someone who is always finicking with their armrests and you just can’t quite seem to get comfortable, this could be a great solution to your problems. It’s easy to use, well-implemented, and can be installed in a matter of minutes.

To be perfectly transparent, I belong to that first category. I don’t use my armrests when I’m gaming, so I quite frankly don’t attach a great deal of importance to their exact position. So while this is not a product for me personally, I can say that this is well-made and that it addresses a problem that some (pro) gamers have, so I’m all for it.

I do wonder if Secretlab couldn’t also release a ‘light’ version of this product, though. If you’re someone who just wants to set and forget their armrests, but you do want that fine control, it doesn’t really make sense to pay for fancy stuff like the screen and all of that.

MAGPAD On-Stage Standard Edition

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What is it?

The MAGPAD OSS Edition is a desktop cover that you can place on any MAGNUS Pro desk. It has a bunch of measuring tools printed on it, so that you can always position your peripherals in the exact same way. This is something that’s very important for a lot of gamers, so it makes sense that this is also part of the OSS lineup.

Installing the MAGPAD

Installing a MAGPAD isn’t difficult, but it might take a couple of tries. Since the whole thing works via magnets that are quite strong, it’s not difficult to mess up the alignment because the MAGPAD snapped to the desk at a weird angle. Once you get the hang of it, it’s extremely simple to place the MAGPAD on your desk, though.

Using the MAGPAD

The MAGPAD doesn’t rely on fancy technology; it’s essentially a desk mat printed with measurement lines. Using these lines, you can make sure that your peripherals are always placed in the exact same spot. For home users, this is not a huge deal, since you can just place your mousepad and monitor once and forget about it, but if you’re a gamer who is always playing in different locations all the time, this can be a lifesaver.

I can really see the value of something like this. I personally always like to have my mousepad and monitor at (approximately) the same positions on my desk, so if I were a pro gamer it would give me peace of mind knowing that I can position these things exactly the same.

Something I do miss is an angle tool. For a lot of gamers, their keyboard angle is quite important, so having a protractor printed somewhere in the corner would go a long way in helping out here as well. Personally, I don’t miss this, as I constantly change my exact keyboard position anyway, but there’s plenty of room to add it for people who would use this.

Aside from that, there’s nothing I would change about the MAGPAD OSS Edition. I like the relatively subtle colors and design (as far as a drafting-paper desktop can be subtle, that is), and it’s easy to install and remove.

Conclusion

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The Secretlab On-Stage Standard gear is not for everyone. The name already betrays that. If you’re not someone who is regularly playing in tournaments and in different locations, these products won’t change your life. But for players who are traveling the world to play their game, these products can be a game changer. They can save a lot of time when setting up for a match, and they can help eliminate those nagging ‘what if…’ feelings when it comes to the setup that the players find themselves in.

It’s a logical step in the right direction to make on-stage tournaments a lot more standardized and streamlined, and that’s something I can only applaud. If you want to learn more about how and why this kind of stuff matters to pros, you can also check out Secretlab’s mini documentary on their YouTube channel.