My Ideal and High-End Home Office Setup
Covid hit us hard! I do not think that anything good has come or will come out of this pandemic. However, it made me realise I needed a proper home setup for my work and entertainment needs.
I hesitated a lot before investing in it but eventually, I leaned towards more high-end products as you'll see soon.
My belief is that it's worth investing in expensive products which you are going to use for a long time - Work From Home is not going away anytime soon, so get yourself ready!
Okay now, let's talk about some practicalities. How does one assemble the right combination of equipment for home office use? Combinations to choose from amount to billions if you imagine having a dozen options per piece of equipment.
Simply put, if your envisioned home setup consisting of ten devices altogether and ten options each, then overall combinations equals 10,000,000,000. These are not feasible permutations one is able to handle without additional insight.
So I think some guidance from me or from others would not hurt. I am sure there are better setups that are far cheaper, way better, and more practical. However, this one has worked for me like a charm from the onset.
Essentials
In this section I am going to include only the essential stuff if you want to reproduce the minimal functional setup:
Why only one monitor and why curved? A big curved monitor is much better than two small ones, in my opinion. Your eyes are equidistant from any pixel of your monitor as you surf and browse over the curved screen. You can never get it right with two separate monitors.?
But why Alienware (which is actually a line of product by Dell that produces gaming devices and accessories)? To this, I can only say that any quality curved monitor with an IPS panel will do.
This one just astonished me with its magnificent design!
This keyboard caught my attention by its?crafted design and productivity features such as its built-in wheel to navigate across browser tabs or control volume. After using it for some time, I can also say it generates the greatest feel I have ever experienced with keystrokes.
There are actually two editions of this camera: one for professional use and the other for streaming. As you can imagine I chose the streaming edition as it allows seamless recording and streaming experience when performed under heavy video load.
Before selecting this product, I asked my friends to advise me while I was also watching some relevant YouTube videos about the best headphones in the market.
Obviously, some were saying the Beats series were the best while others were naming different brands. But almost in all rankings, this particular headphone got into the top five. So, knowing about the quality of Sony products, it was a no-brainer for me to choose this headphone.
Actually, there is a story behind this choice. I remember a few years back when I was attending the Big Data London Conference & Exhibition, I approached the stand operated by Canonical. Whoever doesn't know about this company, I should mention they are the creators of enterprise Ubuntu Linux distribution.
So acknowledging the fact that they know their stuff, I asked what, in their opinion, the best laptop for Linux was. Both of them agreed that XPS series was one of the best ones. Now if you ask me, I can tell you that any laptop or PC is good for Linux?? !
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Currently, I use my laptop with the dual-boot option that has Windows 11 Dev and Kali Linux operating systems installed. It handles both of them pretty well.
This is a recent addition to my collection. I did buy this as I was getting shy of holes in my laptop. Technically you might not need this product if you want to have the same complete setup as mine. But what if you want to slow-charge your phone with a USB cable?
Don't worry if you are not ever going to play games. Think of a gaming chair as an improved office chair - it has more degrees of inclines and is more durable.
Interesting fact, when I looked into my Amazon Order history, I saw that I ordered GTPLAYER Gaming Chair although the actual chair delivered to me was GTRACING ??. Sometimes you don't get what you ordered?! Surprise, surprise!?
In any case, I hope those two brands to be of the same high quality (well, let's see).
Extras
Of course, I over-invested in some of the devices and equipment that I do not use as often as the others. The first instrument I bought was an expensive microphone from Rode:
In fact, I bought this mic because I fell in love with its intro video. Then I was actually lucky to get hold of the last available microphone from a well-known (I think) music/guitar shop called Andertons Music Co.
Not until buying this gorgeous mic did I realise I needed a recording device to make it work, so I had to invest an additional ￡1000 for it (welcome to the market of complementary products!):
I bought it from another online music store called Gear4music.com which sells tons of musical instruments. Do check it out if you are into the music world.
The next luxury item in my setup is the soundbar that I bought from the official Sony Center retail shop:
This one is just for my entertainment use, not an office essential. When looking into options, I did filter soundbars based on Dolby Atmos technology since it promises an immersive experience when listening to music or watching films. Believe me, it sounds way better and clearer than an ordinary soundbar/speaker. You'll spot the difference right from the start.
And finally, after purchasing all these things, I thought I might well buy a chrome key for some background effect if I am ever going to produce a podcast or a video, so I opted in for a chrome key by Neewer which is a company that sells photo and video accessories. Do check them out too if you are into this kind of stuff.
Epilogue
And here in the cover photo is my final setup which I use (almost) every day both for work-related and personal projects/development stuff (just imagine also that there is a green chrome key standing behind the chair?? and a soundbar behind the monitor). Counting how much money I spent on my setup, I think it's time to tweak my spending habits!??
Hope this is useful. If you feel like sharing, I would like to know what your ideal setup is: why you chose it and how much it cost you.