Austin, Texas-based photographer Matt Tran initially built his impressive setup to share his pics on Instagram, and you can certainly see a lot of them there. But now he uses his workstation, centered on a MacBook Pro and two monitors of vastly different sizes, to film and edit videos.
“I like having the 38-inch [LG] ultrawide to view the timeline on Final Cut Pro and the smaller, 15.6-inch Desklab portable monitor to review the footage,” he told Cult of Mac.
Ryan Brookes, who works in sales for a financial services firm in Denver, Colorado, likes his open spaces. That includes indoor ones, like a spare, clean setup on his desk. Physical space helps him think, he told Cult of Mac.
His Mac mini with an M1 chip tethered to a 49-inch Samsung curved monitor probably help him think, too. Those and his iPad, which he will soon pair with a Keychron K1 Mechanical Keyboard.
David Wilcox is an IT consultant working from home in Bristol, England. His remote work situation means he gets to tweak his setup just as he likes, he told Cult of Mac.
Wilcox’s central command is a 27-inch 5K iMac from 2019. Humming along with it are two 28-inch U2HE850 monitors paired and run together via a Startech Thunderbolt 3 to Dual DisplayPort Adapter.
With that much screen real estate and a plethora of networking gear, he gets a lot done.
“My first computer was a Sinclair [Research] ZX81,” he said, referring to a machine made by Timex Corp. in the United Kingdom starting in 1981. “So this setup is just about a home-computing Nirvana!”
Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based Edward Wang, Ph.D., is an executive director with Quest Diagnostics. He took some serious time and effort making his setup a clean and powerful tool for health care work and audiovisual play. Once he diagnosed and treated a cable-management malady stemming from several separate pieces of computer and audio equipment, his setup delighted him.
Brisbane, Australia-based defense contractor Duncan Shultz loves Dungeons & Dragons. And that’s the main action his Mac-mini-and-wide-screen setup sees, although he also admits to using it to work for a living. An Aasimar Sorcerer’s got to eat, after all.
“The wide screen is simply awesome for my uses,” Shultz told Cult of Mac. “Specifically in running online D&D games. I can have video conferencing, multiple browsers, streaming software and other tools all open and accessible.”
In addition to the aforementioned sorcerer character — goes by the name of Selinth, BTW — Schultz is a dungeon master for Curse of Strahd campaigns, one online and one in person. Online he uses the Roll20 website and in person he uses EncounterPlus for iOS and macOS.
An IT professional who specializes in Mac and iOS home implementations probably has a leg up on the next guy when it comes to building an Apple-centric home office and man cave.
Or is it a man cave and home office? We’ll let Paul O’Toole, an IT pro from Worcestershire, England, decide that. It’s his, after all. He calls it a “sitting room,” actually.
He turned his garage into an office and movie palace, thanks to an LG 34UC99 curved monitor and a pair of HomePods running with his Mac Pro.
Gareth Owen is a London-based professional sound designer whose job involves extensive CAD and acoustic modeling, but he also does sound effects work and multitrack mixing.
So he built a setup that functions as both his home office and a basic home studio.
Miami-based Curtis Sponsler has been a 3D animator and motion graphics designer for more than 30 years. These days, that work takes copious amounts of computing power and massive storage capacity.
Fortunately, his current iMac Pro-based setup handles his needs well.
The man even built his own render farm in a closet with dedicated air conditioning to store and cool his video-rendering machines.
Ed Yoon has a job many music fans and players would covet. He’s chief operating officer of high-end electric guitar maker and distributor Strandberg Guitars USA in Riverside, California. As you might guess from his line of work, he’s a major audiophile. And his office setup makes a lot of noise to that effect.
OK, not “noise.” Beautiful music.
Even before the pandemic, Yoon had been working a lot from home to manage the company’s operations. Then, as COVID-19 spread, remote work became the norm. Unlike most of us, he needed more than just a desk and a computer with decent speakers. He had to have mind-blowing audio.
Allan Hagen is a New York-based professional magician and amateur photographer with a serious setup. His favorite part of the setup is the big, stunning Antoccino Desk by RH Modern, which helps him concentrate.
“A big desk with a fairly minimalist setup really lends itself to focusing on the tasks at hand,” he said.
Andreas Larsson is a Sweden-based security technician who converted a tiny corner of his office into a bonafide workspace. He had limited space to work with so he tried to squeeze every inch out of it. His friend, who works at an office furnishing company, custom-built a desk to span 46 inches — the entire length of his office.
When we published a Setups post with the headline “This desk has a minimalism level of over 9,000,” consultant Mike Leardo felt compelled to send in his own rig to show what peak minimalism really looks like.
You can’t get more minimalist than this — mouse, keyboard and screen.
Anthony Ivanovsky is a Toronto-based marketing expert and IT manager who has a knack for gadgets, both big and small. In his setup, an MSI Optix MAG341CQ 34-inch UltraWide Curved Gaming Monitor immediately draws the eye. And at $500, it costs considerably less than other ultrawides on the market.
On the left-hand side of his desk, standing like a monument, is the commanding Mac Pro. He uses this beast of a machine for video editing, photo editing and for his day job working for a tech startup. Aside from the base Radeon 580X, he also has two additional Radeon VII graphic cards, which may seem like overkill until you learn that he also runs three different YouTube channels.
The heart of Merényi Márk’s setup is a 2018 Mac mini. Even though it’s a base-line model, this little Mac that could executes every task he throws at it.
Márk recently ditched his LG UlraWide Monitor and replaced it with an LG 32UK550-B 32-inch 4K VA Monitor, which is made for gaming. He prefers the standard 16:9 aspect ratio of his new monitor when playing on his Xbox. In terms of fewer viewing angles that come with a VA (Vertical Alignment) panel, he sits right in front of it, so it’s not an issue. And he “expected far worse viewing angles and colors from [a VA panel],” so it came as a “pleasant surprise” to him that it’s so good.
Tyler Marsh has a setup that would make even Marie Kondo proud. He has nothing on his desk besides a couple of family photos and a scented candle, which both spark joy.
The linchpin of Marsh’s rig is an LG 34-inch UltraWide Curved Monitor. It’s the only thing in the setup that isn’t minimalist. He uses the massive screen to run a 2017 MacBook Pro for personal use. He also has a Lenovo ThinkPad T480 14-inch Business Laptop as his work machine.
COVID-19 forced Jeff Houle to work remotely, which was not a problem since he prefers his personalized WFH desk rather than his drab office desk. Houle is an avid collector, whether it is Disney pins (see the cork board) or old Apple products.
But when it comes to Macs, he does not just collect them. He finds unique ways to reuse them. He held on to his iBook G4 and iMac G4 (which he got at a swap meet for $10) to play old games like the original Sim and Oregon Trail — where he probably found the iBook.
Alex Knoll is a professional photographer with some serious carpentry skills. When he couldn’t find a desk he liked that matched his budget, he decided to just build one himself. He sketched a plan on his iPad with the Procreate app and bought himself a few long slabs of pine and got to work. With a set of $100 table legs he bought from TableLegs.com, the total cost of the materials came out to roughly $300.
Brandon Fayette is VFX supervisor for The Orville, Hulu’s hilarious Star Trek-esque sci-fi comedy show from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. Since screen space is vital to Fayette, he runs a triple-monitor rig.
The headliner is a Dell 49-inch UltraSharp Monitor. Its 32:9 aspect ratio means that he needs to find a wide panoramic pic for his screen saver. Next to the UltraSharp, Fayette uses a Wacom Cintiq 27QHD 27-inch monitor. This uber-precise monitor boasts a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, which is four times the pixel density of a standard HDTV.
Fayette’s third monitor is an Eizo CG277-BK 27-inch ColorEdge Professional Monitor. With its amazing image quality, it was specifically designed for professional colorists.
When the new Mac Pro was released, Jonathan Morrison knew that meant one thing, it was time to change his setup. So he abandoned his MacBook Pro and started from scratch. He now runs a scintillating Mac Pro through a scintillating 32-inch Pro XDR Display. And because he is a Tech Youtuber, he also has the Pro Stand. He says that the Mac Pro is overkill for the stuff that he is doing but he loves how quiet it is.
Reddit user @u/ilovenyc’s plant-themed setup is warm and inviting. The favorite part of @u/ilovenyc’s setup is a jaw-dropping, 49-inch Samsung CRG9 Curved Gaming Monitor, which is hooked up to a Mac mini. @u/ilovenyc (who prefers to remain autonomous) says it “never fails to put a smile on my face every time I sit down, whether to work or game.”
Next to the Mac mini, the cybersecurity expert has a PC rig for gaming. It has a AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Desktop Processor with a NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 graphic card. They are encased in a ZXT H210 Mini-ITX PC Gaming Case.
Los Angeles-based designer Johan Loekito has three MacBooks on his desk. Yes, three!
It may sound bonkers to have three MacBooks on one desk but his hardware collection is more modest that it first appears. His main machine is a 2018 MacBook Pro and it’s a company laptop. He has a 2015 MacBook Pro for personal stuff, and a 2014 MacBook Air that is his partner’s.
Duncan Schultz, a government official from the land down under, started working from his home in Brisbane earlier this year. It turned out to be a great opportunity to upgrade his setup. He got rid of his 2015 iMac and instead bought himself a 2020 Mac mini and decided to experiment. He specced out his Mac mini with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. He wanted plenty of screen real estate without having two screens. So he connected it to a Samsung 43-inch 4K Smart TV and is not looking back.
Justin Tse is a video editor and popular tech YouTuber. As a video editor having plenty of screen space is paramount. That is why he uses a LG 5K2K 34-inch UltraWide Monitor. Since switching to the UltraWide he says he can’t go back.
Running the UltraWide is a 15-inch 2019 MacBook Pro. His MacBook is specced with maxed-out graphics and 32GB of RAM. Since he has a lot on his plate, the MacBook is great for mobility so he can work on the go.
Mark Spurrell is a Canadian tech YouTuber who knows a thing or two about building productive setups. His rig is geared toward getting things done. The mainstay is a 2020 27-inch iMac, a total workhorse of a machine.
He uses a sit-stand SmartDesk 2 by Autonomous. This desk is awesome for long grinds, because when he is bored of sitting, he can get new scenery with the click of a button. When he does sit down, he sits in a Kinn Chair, also made by Autonomous. This chair is basically an adapted Herman Miller Embody, the gold-standard of ergonomic office chairs. But at $419, it costs less than a third of the price.
When tech YouTuber Dan Barbera built his desk, he wanted something that gave him a lot of space and flexibility. He runs his rig off a 2019 MacBook Pro, so his computer is not chained to his desk. The Autonomous SmartDesk 2 is roomy and gives him the option to sit or stand.
The most accommodating thing on the desk, though, is a 32-inch Samsung Space 4K Monitor. Designed to save space, the hyper-adjustable Samsung Space allows him to push the monitor against the wall, or tilt it all the way down onto the desk, freeing up valuable desk real estate underneath it.