Last week, I started going over upgrades that I made to the office. This week, I figured that I would talk about upgrades to my main desk. In November of 2020, I made some general quality of life improvements by replacing the keyboard with a Das Model S Professional Mechanical Keyboard, replacing the mouse with a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse, adding a Logitech C920s HD Pro and a 6in LED Ring Light to make myself look good, and adding a TONOR Cardioid Condenser Mic to make myself sound good. This year’s upgrades centered on replacing my two Hanns·G 25″ 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitors with two LG Ultragear Gaming 32” QHD (2560 x 1440) Monitors. Considering the fact that I bought those original monitors in November 2010, it was probably time upgrade.
Going from the 25″ monitors to 32″ monitors meant that I had to update where the monitors were situated on the desk and how they were oriented. Luckily, I bought a new monitor mount that was a little more accommodating than the previous one. Previously, both monitors were in a portrait orientation. The new monitors are arranged with one in a portrait orientation and one in a landscape orientation. In order to make room for my condenser mic, I also had to introduce a microphone arm stand. The new arm stand meant that I’m now getting a lot of comments on teams calls about looking like a podcaster?
When I set things up in 2020, I used a Thunderbolt 3 (Dual HDMI 100W PD3.0 2USB SD/TF RJ45) docking station that uses two of the four USB ports on the macbook pro. This time, I am replacing that with the OWC 12-Port Thunderbolt 3 Dock, which should both occupy one fewer USB port and should offer a better refresh rate on the two monitors. (As of writing this, the dock hasn’t arrived in the mail yet, though.)
The other issue that I wanted to address is lighting. That room has never had enough of it and since the new monitors are going to completely block the only window, it’s only going to get worse. Previously, I adding sticky LED rope lighting to help things but I figured that something on the desk would be a good idea.
This setup isn’t perfect. I kinda miss being able to see out the window, among other things. I also want to try to find some wall art for above the desk.
Have any comments, suggestions, etc? Feel free to leave a comment, below.