Some of the best computer setups look a little boring at a glance. But that’s just because they include only essential gear and they keep it well lit and free of cable (and other) clutter.
Today’s featured M1 MacBook Air setup is a good example. And that’s not to say it’s plain or overly simple. You can see that in the well-thought-out gear list below, which features 19 items.
You might think you’d give your right arm for one of those stunning, 49-inch curved ultra-wide monitors to use with your Mac. But then again, you might end up begging for your appendage back, as well as your old display. Or at least something a little less colossal.
Minus the stray arm — as far as we know — that’s more-or-less what happened with today’s featured MacBook Pro-based setup.
Sometimes you see a pristine computer setup flaunted on social media and you think, how is that even real? Is it staged? Is it a render? At the very least, it looks like they left out all the cables for the photograph. But that’s not necessarily the case.
A lot of us live with messy setups, in part due to cable clutter. But neatening things up doesn’t have to be next-to impossible, as today’s featured Mac mini setup demonstrates.
Today’s featured M1 Pro MacBook workstation has a new Studio Display with bias lighting, illuminating the wall behind the display. It comes from three strategically placed Philips Hue Play bars that really make that corner of the small apartment “pop.”
Mounts can make the most of a computer setup. They can mobilize so much of your gear — computers, displays, microphones — so you can use them when you need them and push them out of the way when you don’t, opening up desk space. And you can minutely adjust their positioning, too.
Today’s featured MacBook Pro and Mac Studio computer setup takes advantage of mounts for the computers, display, video camera and microphone.
Everybody knows Macs don’t set the gaming world on fire, though Apple silicon has made some inroads. So while plenty of Mac users enjoy Apple Arcade and use Apple hardware to play games, many turn to other means. We’ve seen plenty a hybrid Mac – PC computer setups out there.
But today’s featured setup takes another course to gaming satisfaction. It’s owner, who describes himself as an “old gamer,” divides his time between work via an M1 MacBook Pro and gaming on a Valve Steam Deck.
We don’t run across huge numbers of computer setups online driven by M1 MacBook Air laptops. When a laptop is the main computer, it’s more often a MacBook Pro.
But a MacBook Air powered by an M1 chip is a formidable machine, whether you’re tossing it in your knapsack for work on the go or leaving it on a stand on your desk, jacked into a USB-C hub and external display.
An M1 MacBook Air drives today’s featured setup — located in Germany — which also features some interesting bits and pieces we haven’t seen elsewhere. Those are a nifty Marshall wireless speaker and a foot hammock.
You look at enough computer setups online and you realize people are never really done with them. There’s always something to add. It could be some gear got held up by shipping delays, or the setup’s owner got a sudden urge to try another type of input device or some other gadget. And people often take ages to tame the cable clutter.
So you rarely see people claiming a setup’s done for good. Or it’s the best it can be. Or it’s the proverbial “dream setup.”
But sometimes they say that. Today’s setup got called a “dream setup” by its proud owner. Would you agree?
A cool aspect of both Mac minis and the newer Mac Studio are the platform-like USB-C hubs festooned with ports and added storage capacity that third parties have designed for them to sit on. Satechi was quick out of the gate with one for the mini, but there are other such cleverly designed, space-saving hubs on the market. And many of them also fit the Studio.
Today’s featured setup boasts a powerful new Mac Studio perched on a Qwiizlab hub as it drives an LG UltraWide display, among other gear.
Recently we wrote about a PC gamer converting to the Apple ecosystem, happily, with an M1 MacBook Pro-based setup. Now we have a lucky recipient of not one but two recently shipped Studio Displays, freshly arrived to replace a pair of gaming monitors.
We love serious audio here at Setups Central. But is it possible for the audio gear in your computer setup to be too serious? For example, can your desktop speakers be too comically oversized, as if you’re making some sort of visual joke about your life being all about the music?
In today’s featured setup, a magnificent 32-inch Pro Display XDR actually manages to look puny in between two monstrously huge Yamaha powered studio monitors. And yet, believe it or not, they may not actually be too big.
Ever show off your painstakingly constructed computer setup only to have everybody race past the gear just to ogle what’s showing on the screen(s)? The desktop wallpaper.
It’s kind of like that with today’s featured setup, the brainchild of a graphic designer.
He put together the dual-monitor setup around a 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro with a lineup of nice touches. And he also made the neato race-car wallpaper that got most of the attention.
We’ve written about storing a Mac mini in an upright rather than a flat position to save space. It’s OK to do if the machine’s intake and exhaust vents are not blocked. But what about using your Mac mini as a stand for a display, as in today’s featured computer setup?
It’s not necessarily quite as cut-and-dried as the upright mini question. Whether it’s totally fine or a little risky depends a little more on the specific Mac mini and the kind of monitor you use.
Along with the new Mac Studio desktop computer and Studio Display Apple rolled out on Tuesday, it launched swanky black-and-silver peripherals — Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse — that go well with the new gear.
They’re similar to options you can choose if you buy a pricey new Mac Pro. But now you can purchase them separately.
Do you have to pay a bit more than you would for the normal options sold a la carte? Yes. But of course you do.
People love to put the finishing touches on their computer setups. Some love it so much they just keep doing it. Given the temptations of new gear always coming out and the never-ending allure of the glittering gadgets other people put in their fabulous setups, is the work ever really done?
Nope. For many people, setups are never really finished. People think they’re finished, like the owner of today’s featured MacBook Pro setup. But they usually aren’t.
Have you ever seen two big ol’ Apple Cinema Displays mounted vertically, in portrait mode, bookending an iMac? We didn’t think so. Or at least, it seems like a rare sight. But today’s featured setup has that nuevo-retro styling going on, big-time, and folks took notice.
After all, secondary displays in portrait mode seems to be all the rage lately, but not so much back in the glory days of Cinema Displays. Or were they?
You still rarely see a computer setup with a 3D printer in it. Today’s featured setup is an exception. You can see the printer against the wall on the left in the photo above.
Probably more workstations in the near future will have them. Why? Not only are they becoming more affordable, you can use them to make parts of the setup!
When you see a computer setup with two monitors stacked on top of each other, what do you think? Maybe something like … doesn’t the person have to crane their neck to look at the top one? Isn’t it uncomfortable? Where does the webcam go? What’s wrong with side-by-side, maybe with one in portrait (vertical) mode instead of landscape?
The person behind today’s featured setup is confronting those very questions on the way to deciding a common multi-display conundrum: to stack or not to stack? That is the question.
On Fridays it’s fun to focus on computer setups with entertaining features whenever possible. Sometimes it’s seriously vintage gear. Or it could be wacky decor. Once in a while, an exotic location pops up. Today we found one where a brand new M1 Pro MacBook meets a kooky crew of bobbleheads and other figures under a really over-the-top camera rig used as a webcam.
Gamer and 3D animator Jazinity said she’d been a Windows user for most of her life before M1 Macs caught her eye and she made a nearly wholesale switch, going from a tri-display PC gaming station to a “cozy but productive” M1 MacBook Air situation.
The refurbished Furby in the center of the photo may or may not have been in the previous computer setup, but not much else. She has another Furby at her desk at the office, though she’s working at home for the time being, like many people these days.
If Apple takes something away, people tend to want it more. We see this in the persistent coveting of space gray peripherals — Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 — that the Cupertino tech giant stopped selling separately last year after the iMac Pro’s discontinuation.
Following the space gray iMac Pro’s launch in 2018 with matching peripherals exclusive to it, owners found they could sell the dark-hued input devices for mad money. So Apple jumped on that market, charging a slight premium over the silver versions, though not forever. But space gray gear still carries a certain cache.
It’s Christmas Eve, and all we want for the holiday is a Porsche 911. It could be a gleaming new one, with a base price of a mere $99,200. It could be super-cool vintage one. Or it could even be a Lego one like the one featured in today’s MacBook Pro and iPad Pro-driven setup.
OK, given our paltry income, who are we kidding — we’d even take a die-cast 911, like the Matchbox cars of our youth.
OK, so no 2021 award for Most Fastidious Cable Management, mentioned in this article’s headline, exists — at least not around here. But if it did, we might hand it to the person behind today’s setup.
It centers on a 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro and a 32-inch LG 4K display. And it keeps cable clutter to an extreme minimum.
If you look up “11.11” in the Slang Dictionary, it says, “If it’s 11:11, make a wish! Some people believe 11:11 is a magic number or lucky time of day, good for making a wish … or reaching cosmic enlightenment.” Well, if something’s enlightened, or at least en-whitened, it’s today’s Mac mini-based setup.
It’s all there in black and white, really, with “11.11” writ large on the dual displays — probably via the Fliqlo screensaver, though it could be a clock app — and Nintendo gaming consoles aplenty.
Some computer setups are remarkably cool for their awesome computing power. Others wow you with incredible displays, with several high-def monitors. And still others blow you away with premium sound. Or, in the case of today’s featured setup, premium audio-visual gear many people would be psyched to get their hands on.
