Remote working: my advice for a great home office setup with a small budget

Setting up office-like equipment to work productively from home is not an easy task, I wanted to share in this article my essentials equipment and as well to know what others are using to work productively from home. So please share in a comment below your equipment.

My top 3 tools are:

• a great external monitor
• good quality headphones
• an ergonomic mouse

Let's start seeing each of one of this:

A great external monitor

A big external monitor is a fundamental equipment to work productively from home, if you are using just the laptop you will be tired soon. I was looking at several monitors both office and gaming monitors and I wanted to spend not more than ￡250. My shortlist was three monitors: Philips 272B8QJEB, ASUS VP28UQG and the Samsung U28E590D. The Philips 272B8QJEB is a good office monitor, you can adjust the height and there is a hub usb, the big disadvantage is the low resolution 2560 x 1440 pixels. The ASUS VP28UQG is very similar to the Samsung monitor, 4k, 1ms response, and the height is not adjustable.

In the end, I bought the Samsung U28E590D 28-Inch LCD/LED Monitor - Black since a friend recommended it and for the brand and I'm super happy with the choice and I recommend it.

Pros:

• 28 inches, Resolution is 4K (3840x2160 Ultra HD), 1 Billion colours and 370 cd/m2 brightness - it's amazing!
• Price, it's difficult to find a better monitor at this price. Usually, it is around 245. You can check more about the price on CamelCamelCamel
• 1ms Response Time - I'm not a gamer but it is great to have a fast response time
• Eye Saver Mode - optimises your viewing comfort by smartly reducing blue light emissions

Cons:

• the year model is 2015, so it's a bit old but it has still great technical specifications.
• it's not possible to adjust the height. But you can add something below the monitor, in my case I've added the printer, you can also add some books that you're not reading from a while :D

Good quality headphones

Working remotely means a lot of video calls and having a good quality of headphones is super important.

I've bought the Bose QuietComfort Headphones a couple of years ago and I'm super happy. They have a great microphone and they have also noise cancellations.

There is not anymore the model I've bought but I've found this that is equivalent, plus they are also wireless. Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series II) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling

An ergonomic mouse

The Anker AK-UBA mouse is very cheap, you can find on Amazon at ￡15.99 but it has tall the characteristics I was looking for and since I've been using it for 4 years, I definitely recommend it.

This mouse is:

• Wireless
• Vertical ergonomic - at the beginning is wired but after few hours/some days you will feel good
• Cheap

Others equipment I've:

• A good 4K cable, I have a Macbook Air and I've discovered that some Mini Display port adapter (for example the Amazon basics one) don't support 4k resolution, so I bought the following cable Rankie Mini DisplayPort (Mini DP) to HDMI Cable, 1.8 m and it's working perfectly.
• Having an external monitor, you need to have an external camera, especially if you want to use just the external monitor. The Logitech C920S HD Pro Webcam is working great and I recommend it. It is Full HD 1080p/30fps
• A good printer, I've bought a few years ago an Epson XP-610, so far it's going well. Now the new equivalent model should be the Epson XP-6100 Print/Scan/Copy Wi-Fi Printer
• I have the following keyboard Dell KB216 USB Keyboard but I don't like it too much and I will probably replace it in the future. Any suggestions for a good keyboard?

This is my current set up that it's extending the Macbook Air:

• Samsung U28E590D 28-Inch LCD/LED Monitor - Black
• Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series II) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling
• Anker AK-UBA mouse
• Rankie Mini DisplayPort (Mini DP) to HDMI Cable, 1.8 m
• Logitech C920S HD Pro Webcam
• Epson XP-6100 Print/Scan/Copy Wi-Fi Printer
• Dell KB216 USB Keyboard

What I'm looking to buy next:

A standing desk riser

My current equipment is great the only part missing it's standing desk riser. Indeed, I work a couple of hours per day standing up; now I switch my Macbook Air off from my monitor and move to another place where I can create a stand-up desk.

A friend has suggested the following model: FlexiSpot 35" (89cm) I've not tried but it seems great. He said" You simply put it on top of your desk and lift it up when you want. Super stable, not wobbly at all. It's NOT electric but it's pretty easy to lift it up and down. There is also the electric version, which I didn't try." The only cons, I would say, it's that it's a bit expensive but it seems a great tool to alternate sit stand and stand up desk.

A great chair

Currently, I have a cheap Ikea chair, this is also the reason that I've not taken the picture with the chair :D . Definitely, I'm looking to improve my chair since I'm starting to have a small pain on the back. Any recommendations?

Thank you!