On social media, crowing about the beautiful computer setup you finally finished putting together can be a risky gambit. Because, you know, people. They might just gleefully and repeatedly point out small flaws in your masterpiece as if they’re the main thing. Picky, picky, picky.
Alex Goulielmos, based in Piraeus, Greece, works as a software engineer for a maritime shipping company. He keeps it steady as she goes with his WFH setup, figuring, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Or don’t go buying expensive new gear to replace it, anyway.
Good thing his recently acquired and “very snappy” MacBook Air works just fine with a 12-year-old Apple Cinema Display and audio equipment that dates back to the turn of this century. His new M1-powered laptop replaced a 2017 MacBook. But the monitor and audio gear may go on forever.
Redditor brazzy2010 has a super-simple setup with a tremendous asset to go along with an M1-powered MacBook Air. It’s a 30-inch Apple Cinema Display from more than a decade ago. Its exact age is unknown, but it could be up to 16 years old.
Not only does the elderly display still work — with the right connectors, it still dazzles.
If one thing catches your eye first about Redditor arnaki_gkioulmpasi’s setup, it’s probably the interesting light show on the wall behind it. That array is made up of Nanoleaf Shapes that can be arranged any which way.
Those cool-looking lights, along with a Yeelight Screen Light Bar Pro atop the Dell 32-inch curved 4K monitor and a standing lamp next to the desk, keep eyestrain to a minimum.
In theory, you only need a laptop and a table to work from home. But as the months pass, a subpar setup will take its toll on your productivity — and your body. A few choice upgrades can make all the difference.
From dedicated desks to ergonomic mice, here are 11 products that can improve your WFH experience — now on sale for up to 39% off MSRP.
Amazon’s big discount on the outstanding Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro now extends to the 12.9-inch model for the first time. Bag yours today for just $229.99, or pick up the 11-inch model for $199.
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Redditor Singulaffect stirred up a swarm of comments recently when posting a MacBook Pro-based setup featuring an LG 21-inch 4K display but no speakers — and two sets of AirPods. But what really stole the show was a Palm Vx from 1999.
Shad Ahmad was a hard-studying freshman majoring in biology and minoring in history at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Going home to continue classes for a semester remotely from his parents’ house in Wisconsin may not have been ideal, but Ahmad found a comforting upside. Integrated smart technology makes his life easier, 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.
iPhone fans were first able to search for emoji last year, and Apple is finally bringing this feature to iPads. It’s built into the iPadOS 14.5 beta 1 released to public beta testing on Thursday.
Also, those with the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad get a horizontally-oriented boot screen.
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.
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.
I just opened more than 650 tabs in Safari on a new M1 MacBook Air. I would have opened more, but I got bored.
Meanwhile, in the background, the machine is downloading Photoshop and the Microsoft 360 suite, and I can see in Activity Monitor that it’s processing thousands of iCloud photos while also indexing the hard drive.
Despite this, the machine is as fleet as a greyhound. I started working on a Photoshop project while checking email, keeping an eye on TweetDeck and, of course, clicking around all those open Safari tabs. The MacBook Air is just humming. I’ve never seen anything like it.
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.
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.
Picking up a new iPad Air next month? If you’re switching from a 11-inch iPad Pro, you will be pleased to know that most of your existing accessories should work just fine with your new tablet.
Both devices are almost identical in size, with the new iPad Air being ever so slightly thicker than the iPad Pro. Unless you have an incredibly tight-fitting case, you shouldn’t have any compatibility issues.
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.
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.
The Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse are still some of the best accessories Apple ever developed. These refurbished models offer a great way to upgrade your Mac (or iPad) and save some cheese.
B&H Photo is offering even bigger discounts on some 2018 iPad Pro models today only. You can save up to $500 on the 12.9-inch option, with prices starting at just $669 for Wi-Fi + Cellular connectivity.
Get yours today before prices go back up.
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Mark Davis is somewhat of a Renaissance man. He is an author of four novels, an entrepreneur, an engineer and a scientist. He is between startups right now but recently sold a data analytics platform to Dell. In order to perform all of his duties, he needs a setup that can match his tempo. Naturally, he has a dual-monitor setup.
His main monitor is a Samsung U28E590D 28-inch 4k UHD which has a one-millisecond response time that obliterates latency. He pairs it up with a LG 27-inch IPS Monitor which he mainly runs off of his 2018 iPad Pro. A 13-inch MacBook Pro is the backbone of the setup. It is covertly hidden on a Twelve South BookArc behind the monitors. His MacBook is specced out with 16GB of RAM storage, which is important to him “so I can run multiple virtual machines in parallel when needed,” he said.
Ryan Sebastyan is a video editor who until recently was on tour shooting Def Leppard gigs, back when we still had concerts. The tour seems to be on hold now, but he has a nice selection of shots on his Instagram page.
Back at home, he built himself a killer setup. The headliner of this tech festival is the impeccable 27-inch iMac Pro, a beast of a machine. The Grovemade Walnut Monitor Stand makes the iMac its own computer upon a hill. Naturally, he pairs the iMac with the Apple Magic Mouse and Keyboard (with Numeric Trackpad!). The matte black color stands out nicely against the walnut desk and stand.
