What home office computing setup do you have?

Question

For my home office, I've run a 27" monitor+laptop for a long time, working remotely. However, my laptop's getting old, and I'm torn between getting a desktop PC and a laptop, or just getting a laptop only.I don't need to be super mobile all the time, just once in a while. I could also use more computing power/RAM.Grateful for suggestions: stick to laptop only, or diversify?

buboard · Accepted Answer

gaming pc (even a used one). those things are fast and responsive which makes work faster. They are also quiet. Working on the desktop forces you NOT to take the laptop with you and lie around the house , which is a great way to separate work from the rest. Plus you have a workstation to run things you didnt want to run because they drain the battery.
As for the screen i prefer a single ultrawide instead of multiple dazzling and dizzying monitors, I don't need a suntan from my screens. The ability to work standing up is important. I 'm not partial to sit/stand desks because they are wobbly, prefer something like a board on top of the desk.
Also, there's no such thing as old laptop these days. they have not become meaningfully faster in 10 years.

rietta · Answer

I went desktop in 2017 (built it myself with parts from Microcenter) after 3 MacBook Pros had issues around the 3-4 year mark. Each of those were paid to be fixed by AppleCare or American Express, but having your primary work computer serviced with a 2-3 day delay was disruptive. Now I have my desktop and two working laptops (one of those being the aging and repaired MacBook Pro). Very happy that I can go and buy any part I might need to replace in this system locally and get back up and running quickly.

unlinked_dll · Answer

Depending on your build environment, a well cooled, high core count and fast CPU (so i9/3800x or higher), plenty of fast RAM (32GB @ 3600MHz) and NVME drives will shorten your write/build/debug cycles immensely.
Building a machine is easier than ever. For the price of a macbook pro you can make a beefy machine, and it will run a lot faster.
In terms of peripherals, I recently got a 4k sony monitor on sale for around $300 and while you're not going to edit video on it, the extra real estate is much appreciated.

rurban · Answer

A laptop for work, and a desktop which I wake up and suspend remotely (wakeonlan). The desktop for the beefy stuff only, like fuzzing, benchmarking, VM's. CI is done in the cloud now.
Laptop was a Mac Air for a decade, now switched to an AMD Thinkpad with Fedora.
Laptop only is enough.

rietta · Answer

Currently have a three monitor setup with a 32 inch 4k monitor center with two 27 inch 1080p monitors on each side. Have space on my GPU for two more monitors so considering a second bank of monitors on top.

aprdm · Answer

I bought a gaming PC that was around 1K cad so nothing too crazy but still miles away from a laptop in performance.A Microsoft-Ergonomic-Wireless-Bluetrack-Desktop combo of mouse and keyboard, a 80 bucks computer chair (I might upgrade it if WFH stays too long) and the Acer H277HU monitor which I am happy with.

sergiotapia · Answer

I use a mac mini with 16gb ram, i7 - connected to two monitors.I don't like working with laptops because it gets hot and uncomfortable. With my current setup I can use my logitech mx3 master keyboard and mouse comfortably.

What home office computing setup do you have?

A laptop for work, and a desktop which I wake up and suspend remotely (wakeonlan). The desktop for the beefy stuff only, like fuzzing, benchmarking, VM's. CI is done in the cloud now.Laptop was a Mac Air for a decade, now switched to an AMD Thinkpad with Fedora.Laptop only is enough.

Currently have a three monitor setup with a 32 inch 4k monitor center with two 27 inch 1080p monitors on each side. Have space on my GPU for two more monitors so considering a second bank of monitors on top.

I use a mac mini with 16gb ram, i7 - connected to two monitors.I don't like working with laptops because it gets hot and uncomfortable. With my current setup I can use my logitech mx3 master keyboard and mouse comfortably.

A laptop for work, and a desktop which I wake up and suspend remotely (wakeonlan). The desktop for the beefy stuff only, like fuzzing, benchmarking, VM's. CI is done in the cloud now.
Laptop was a Mac Air for a decade, now switched to an AMD Thinkpad with Fedora.
Laptop only is enough.

I use a mac mini with 16gb ram, i7 - connected to two monitors.
I don't like working with laptops because it gets hot and uncomfortable. With my current setup I can use my logitech mx3 master keyboard and mouse comfortably.