PRISM+ ARC Stealth – A Good-Looking Budget Monitor Arm

Do you hate the look of your clunky monitor stand, just sitting on your table and taking up too much space? Do you find that your monitor isn’t at the right height and distance for your viewing comfort, or you want to tilt and pivot/rotate your monitor but the supplied monitor stand can’t do it? Maybe you’re a gamer and you want to elevate your desk setup? A well-designed monitor arm will fit your needs mentioned earlier. Here, I will be reviewing the Arc Stealth monitor arm from PRISM+ to tell you whether it’s good, or not.

I bought this monitor arm during CEE 2019 at PRISM+ exhibitor booth. As far as I know, PRISM+’s core business is in selling gaming monitors and they appear to have affordable FHD and QHD monitors. I only found out this year during CEE 2019 that they were also selling monitor arms! I didn’t even think I would need one but after having some hands-on testing of their designs, I made the instant decision to get one.

Why Get Monitor Arms?

Many people looking to get monitor arms are gamers who want a sexy and minimalist-looking desktop setup. Many others get a monitor arm to improve their desk setup, because having a monitor arm can be quite beneficial by increasing the ergonomics of your monitor and increase productivity. Benefits include:

• Improving posture since you can move your monitor up/down, forwards/backwards, tilt
• Freeing up desk space for other things
• Integrated Cable Management

For me, I really wanted to free up desk space as I felt my monitor stand was occupying a lot of space, and I always felt that the height wasn’t sufficient. Buying the monitor arm, at that price, was an easy decision.

If you’re wondering what kinds of arms to get for your desk setup, it’s up to preference and stylistic vision. There are arms that clamp to the side of your desk and reach out over the desk; Meanwhile there are also vertical arms/mounts that attach at the back of your desk, usually with more limited range of motion. There are even single, dual and even triple arms that can be mounted to your table or your wall (will require drilling) if you want the floating monitor look.

The Good.

If you’re looking for a simple monitor arm that’s under a budget of $100, the ARC Stealth Single is for you.

What I liked about the ARC Stealth:

• Matt black finish, compared to ARC-01 which has a silver finish
• Relatively cheap – SGD$89 at the time of purchase compared to other brands at show
• Slim, compared to other brands that looked like robot body parts
• Wide range of motion

The main difference between these ARC Stealth and ARC-01, as I was told (other than colour), was that the ARC-01 has one USB 3.0 and 3.5mm audio port while the ARC Stealth has two USB 3.0 ports. Depending on your needs and your choice of colour, it might affect which monitor arm you choose to get. Personally, I didn’t need the audio jack as I would be using my Schiit Fulla 2 AMP/DAC for my audio devices, plus I really liked the cool, understated matt black look.

Overall, the ARC Stealth is a decent buy at its price point, for me at least. It isn’t an awesome buy for the reasons which I will discuss below. For the other positive things about it, you can look at their advertisement on their site.

The Bad.

1. Long Term Durability
Its thin and sleek appearance is also its flaw. The base of the arm appears quite thin and requires diligence during assembly because any loose screws will result in wobbling. During assembly, I tightened most of the joints slightly past hand tightened because I could still feel some give/looseness that allowed the arm to shake. Only through long term usage will I know whether the arm remains sturdy or not.

2. Out of Box Settings / Resistance of Moving Parts
The ARC Stealth was advertised as having a ‘built in spring tension gauge that can be tuned and a gas spring counterbalance’, which basically means it will assist you in lifting a heavy monitor, but out of the box the arm didn’t provide much resistance at all against my monitor (27″) and the arm kept lowering on its own. Not only that, the arm, which supports tilt, swivel and pivot, also couldn’t hold my monitor upright, and it kept pointing down.

After some drastic fine tuning, tightening screws all over the monitor arm to increase tension on the internal springs and resistance on the swivel/tilt joint, I could finally get my monitor to hold its position.

One thing to note is that the pivot function might be quite flimsy. The provided VESA mount, which attaches onto your monitor, has a screwed on mechanism that is responsible for pivoting. This mechanism tends to shift and wiggle slightly before you encounter resistance as you fully engage the mechanism when initiating the rotation of your monitor. The monitor ends up tilting sideways slightly (which is super annoying) and it is extremely difficult to try to keep it perfectly horizontal. Even if you as much as bump into it, the monitor will be tilted. However, I also fixed this by tightening two screws on the mechanism I mentioned, you will see it at the back of the mount. After that, the pivoting became much stiffer.

The out-of-box settings don’t seem to support the typical weight of monitors out there, and requires a lot of manual adjustment to get it right.

3. Limited Height Adjustments (Max Height)
Due to the design of the arm, it can only raise your monitor up to about 44 cm (measured from the center of the monitor, at the point of attachment) off from the table surface. Those of you who are taller or like to sit on higher chairs might find it inadequately high at its max height.

4. Fixed Pattern of Positions
Due to this particular design of the monitor arm as mentioned earlier, there are some particular positions you can’t move your monitor to. What I mean is that it is very difficult to move the monitor, for example, closer to the base while keeping the same distance from your face. The 3-part arm design makes it such that the monitor always pivots around the joints and as a result there’s only a certain permutation of positions allowed with such a design.

Especially if you are using the mount flushed against a wall, there motions are much more limited since your arm is unable to swing backwards. You may prefer other designs depending on how you would want to view your monitors.

5. Clamp Design
I used the table clamp option (there is also a drill-clamp option) and the rubber feet present, meant to provide some grip (if any, they were quite smooth) and protection from clamping onto your table surface, were totally flattened after tightening the clamp fully. As I wanted the monitor arm to be totally secure and firmly attached to my table, I tightened the clamp all teh way and as a result, the rubber rings actually stuck out the corners of the base, ruining the overall sleekness of the ARC Stealth.

-Final Verdict-

As a student on a budget yet looking for to free up desk space, getting a monitor arm seemed like a logical choice to make. Of course, some of you might ask, “Why would you need a monitor mount in the first place? Just live with the given stand.” Having space freed up on my desk (attached to a single point at the edge of table vs. generic stand sitting right smack in the middle) and being able to adjust the arm to different heights and distances from my face for better viewing posture and comfort were the greatest benefits.

Test out the model you are interested in before buying if possible. At IT shows the exhibitors often have many monitor setups for viewing and hands-on testing. Some other mount designs from other brands had a central pole that allowed a greater range of vertical movement, increasing the max height of monitors compared to the ARC Stealth, which is limited by the design of the arm.

The end result is you get a very professional and minimalist looking desktop setup, with plenty of desk space and a hovering monitor that might make your friends visiting (and yourself, of course) go ‘Wow…’

If I were working in a professional office or studio, I might consider some other monitor arms, such as those offered by Titan Brackets, which was also present at CEE 2019. Compared to PRISM+ arms, Titan’s mounts looked thick, sturdy and were built like tanks. I personally tested out both brands and Titan’s single monitor mount felt much more stable and solid compared to the ARC Stealth. However, the trade-off was that it looked more bulky than the much more sleek ARC Stealth. In the end, I got the ARC Stealth as my desk isn’t that big and I needed something slim and elegant. If you are looking for more industrial-looking monitor arms to be used in a modern office and want something solid and impressive but don’t mind the bulkiness of it, Titan’s mounts might interest you.

Edit (May, 2020): There have been a few PMs about how to prevent the monitor from ‘drooping’ or ‘sagging’. I tightened the bolt shown in the image below to increase resistance to hold up my 27 inch monitor. Depending on your monitor’s weight and how the arm came from the production line, you may need to adjust accordingly. Hope this helps those out there with issues!

Edit:

I solved my drooping screen by tightening the nut that is parallel to the VESA mount, going across the hinge that allows the screen to tilt up and down.

To increase the ‘strength’/resistance of the arm to support a heavier weight, there is a nut at the back that is aligned with the upper most arm. Turn that nut in the direction of the ‘-‘ and it loosens the tension of the spring allowing the arm to move up and down with the weight of your monitor.