Now that I’m full-time in an office environment, I have relocated some of the amenities from my home setup and purchased some accessories to make work a bit easier.
The first major purchase a Dell UltraSharp UP2414Q 23.8-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor and a LX Dual Stacking Arm from Ergotron. Following this, I grabbed the Softech DL-95TH and the Twelve South BookArc for iPad. I wanted to keep using my home keyboard and mouse @ home so I picked up an Apple Wireless Keyboard and Logitech Wireless Performance Mouse MX. For those 2 units, I grabbed a AA Panasonic Eneloop Charging Station and I brought from home my APC BR1000G Back-UPS Pro 1000 Uninterruptible Power Supply because even though I use a notebook w/ a battery built in, there’s nothing worse than surges / power outages that cause all of my devices to turn off expect the MacBook namely, losing my 2nd monitor for a bit.
To really bring things together, I turned to GroveMade who are making the most beautiful desk accessories. Typing with their laptop stand and wrist-rest is a joyous experience. The vibration of the key strokes is gone, I can type faster and it feels like less pressure on my joints as the wood takes a bit of the force and flexes. The leather mouse-paid is a joy. Very soft, comfortable and large. Even though I’m new to it, the brass iPhone 6 dock is also a joy. It fits my Apple leather case, is extremely heavy and looks great. While the GroveMade things are pricey, I’m very happy with their aesthetics and use so far. I bought this gear from GroveMade:
The setup is absolutely perfect for me and I sit at a desk now for 8-10 hours a day without fatigue or discomfort. Yes, there was a monetary investment but these are all things I can take home with me if I’d like. The iPad is the 128GB Air 2 w/ Verizon LTE. iPhone 6 is also 128GB Gold. The MacBook Pro is their late-2013 model with Core i7, Dedicated GPU, 16 gigabytes of RAM and 256GB SSD. I use the Shure SRH850 Earphone/Monitors for audio.
The only thing left that I’d like to grab is a Thunderbolt 2 dock from Elgato or Belkin. I have a bit of a cable disaster on my desk and changing all of these ports to 1 thunderbolt would be nice. Right now, i have every port on the MBP occupied with a peripheral.
Maybe the only 2 negative remarks on this setup is the 4K 24” Dell Monitor causes my MacBook Pro graphics to stutter sometimes and I’d also prefer to have a 32” 4K monitor instead but jumping from $600 to $1800 for a monitor is a bit extreme. The 4K monitor does look much better than the built in MacBook Pro Retina Display. I may sell the 24” and go 32” once the prices come down. For now, this display is fine but the Ergotron supports much heavier monitors so there is room for expansion down the road. Also, the GroveMade Mouse Pad is not sitting flat on my desk and flares up on the edges. I’ll put some weights on it at night for a few days and see if that fixes it. I wish it was a flat surface.
Aside from the New Coffee Setup @ Work, that’s all I have to share for now.
