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With the help of two Amazon gift cards for Christmas, I finally purchased a white board.  While I do have some wall space in my new home office, I prefer mobile white boards so that I can move them around, and they often have a double-sided white board (some have a white board on one side and a bulletin board on the other) so you get a two-for-one deal. 

I placed my order on Sunday, January 3, and it arrived safely on Friday, January 8.  My husband and I assembled it yesterday.  I took a quick picture and posted it to Facebook, and had a few comments and IMs asking about it.  So instead of replying to each person, I figured I’d write a blog post, because what genealogist doesn’t love a good white board?

The model I purchased is Luxor L340.  It’s a double-sided magnetic white board that’s 4′  wide by 3′  high (the assembled height is just over 5′), with wheels (two locking) for easy mobility.  I paid $245.99 (the current price is $249.99), which is a bargain since mobile white boards of this size can run in the $500-600 range. 

Figuring the price was too good to be true, I read through the comments carefully (including comments for similar boards by the same manufacturer).  Some complained that the assembly instructions were terrible, some complained the assembled height was too short for tall people who have to bend down to write on the bottom , some felt this particular board isn’t sturdy, and on some of the Luxor products people complained that pre-drilled holes didn’t line up (many of those comment were older and I didn’t see any in the past few months so I proceeded to make my purchase).

My Experience in Relation to the Comments
  • Instructions – They aren’t the greatest, but assembly is not difficult.
  • Assembled Height – I’m 5’5″ and I can see where the assembled height of just over 5′ could be a problem for taller people, but I can sit in a chair and write comfortably and that’s a feature I appreciate.
  • Sturdiness – I disagree with the comments that this board isn’t sturdy.  It’s solid as a rock.
  • Assembly Issues – I did have a problem of holes not lining up on the bar that the marker tray sits on.  The tray has a lip with pre-drilled holes and is supposed to be mounted to the support bar in the middle of the frame; these two pieces did not line up, so hubby had to drill new holes.  If there had been issues on the frame, I would have sent it back.  Like I said, most concerns were on other Luxor products and were quite some time ago, so I took a chance.  Keep in mind I have terrible luck, so that’s probably why I ended up with the lemon of the bunch.  I’m a little disappointed, but because of the location of the problem, it wasn’t worth it to send it back since we could fix it ourselves.  I wonder what would have happened if we contacted Amazon or the third party seller.  Would we have had to return the whole thing? (This option would suck!)  Would they just sent us the two pieces as replacements? (A desirable option.)  I’m really not sure. 
  • Another Assembly Note – While the assembly kit includes a screwdriver and a wrench (14mm on one side and 17mm on the other), we needed another 17mm when attaching the support bars to the frame because there are nuts on one side and the bolt has a nut head, so you need one wrench to hold one while you tighten the other.  No big deal, we have a hardware store in our garage 😉

Overall, I’m happy with this particular white board and it would have been perfect had we not had to drill new holes when assembling the marker tray.  But saving hundreds of dollars, that marker tray was a small issue—for us at least—and wasn’t really a problem.