Last year I started working on the home setup, which I never thought would become my home office one day.
I recently purchased a new Laptop for my Home Office Setup:
ASUS ZenBook Duo Pro Laptop:
- The laptop comes with Dual Screen as visible in the image above. The second image is known as ScreenPad+. You can use it as a secondary screen. Also, it comes with an app to manage your apps. Looks like below
You can drag and drop all the applications to keep your desktop clean. - It also has the option to group multiple apps, and once you click on that group, they will start, e.g., I want VS code to open on the primary screen and on ScreenPad+ I want to open Terminal and my music app that can be done and you can add 4 shortcuts like that
Below, Gif shows how it works. You can open all apps you want to group and click capture. You can update that too.
- Swap screen: Yes, you can do that too. If you want the content from screen 1 to be shifted to screen 2 and vice versa, you need to select the below option
- Performance: I have been using it for a week and playing AOE (Age of Empire) a few times; no issues were found. Boot time is within seconds until there are no Windows updates.
- RAM and Storage: I was lucky to get the 2nd generation 2020 build, which has improved a lot, especially the Thunderbolt port. It has 32GB DDR4 RAM, 1 TB SSD storage.
- Screen: It has 39.62cm(15.6") OLED 4K (3840 x 2160) 16:9 touchscreen, even scrennpad+ has the same resolution and touchscreen as well. It comes with an ASUS pen, if you are a fan of using it, added advantage.
- Numpad + Touchpad: You might have noticed, there is no extra touchpad visible. The Numpad can be used as a touchpad; you can disable and enable the Numpad by pressing the key shown in the image.
- Cooling: While playing games and running VS code and multiple browsers, I can feel the heat coming from the laptop, but in this generation, cooling is improved. It takes really less time to cool down once I stop playing the game.
I will say this laptop is worth investing in. I love it so far.
Why I purchased it? Of course, I did a lot of research before buying this one. My other 2 options were Dell XPS 17 and Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Gen 2.
I purchased this one for one additional reason, I give talks and conduct sessions online, and now I can easily open the Terminal, code snippets on my secondary screen while presenting my talks or sessions. And it will be useful even once we have in-person conferences and meetups.
Laptop Stand
Amazon Basics products are pretty cool, and cheap so I went with AmazonBasics Ventilated Laptop Stand
Blue Yeti:
Last year I became a GitHub star, and they sent me a lot of amazing swags, Blue Yeti was on my wish list and they sent me one, I was using Blue snowball earlier.
Rode PSA1 Studio Boom Arm for Broadcast Microphones:
Blue Yeti Mic is heavy and needs a good Boom Arm, thanks to Google Devs India for sponsoring this amazing Studio Boom, I can use with Blue Yeti.
Blue Microphones Radius III Broadcast Shockmount
If you are using Boom Arm, you need a Shockmount Radius III Broadcast Shockmount is great, and thanks again to Google Devs India for sponsoring this, which goes really well with the setup.
Asus VZ249H 24-inch FHD Monitor
I started building my setup last year; as I mentioned, I decided to go with this 24-inch monitor and Full HD. Of course, due to budget constraint again, My first choice for a new monitor would be either HP EliteDisplay or any Dell UHD monitors, which are too costly or LG 29 inch Ultrawide Full HD
Keyboard and Mouse
I like using a USB keyboard and mouse.
Logitech K230 Compact Wireless Keyboard
Logitech M590 Silent Wireless Mouse
The mouse is silent, and the keyboard does not make much sound, which is good to record videos.
Green Screen and Stand:
I needed a green screen to use Virtual background for my talks. I use StreamYard for streaming and use a background image.
Cable Management
Once you have these many things, the biggest problem is you have a lot of cables visible. For cable management, I was using InstaNeat Cable Management Box, which I moved in my hall for other stuff, and currently using ORICO Cable Management Box
Headphone
I tried many USB headphones, but none of them were good, I use
Sennheiser PC 8 Over-Ear USB VOIP Headphone just for the Audio Input
Webcam
For a long time, I wanted to buy a great webcam and Logitech Brio was on my wishlist and GitHub made that wish come true last year by sending me Logitech Brio, and I simply love it, the clarity is amazing.
Elgato key light
Streaming is incomplete without good lighting and thanks again to GitHub for sending me the Elgato key light. All my videos have better light.
Standing Desk (SMART LIFT ELECTRIC 2)
I was looking for a standing desk for a long time, and finally one of my friends suggested me "ebco", they have showrooms in most of the cities and I purchased one from them recently.
Here is the link, if you want to buy one https://ebco.in/products/worksmart/office-furniture-fittings/smart-lifts/smart-lift-electric-2-2-stage-anti-collision-3-memory-setting
Top comments (8)
My first thought when seeing this laptop was having the terminal in that secondary window. It's good to see a real case scenario for it. One recommendation for windows: instead of using the normal terminal, I have been using the Windows Terminal from Microsoft Store. Game changer as you can customise different command lines (cmd, git bash, powershell, etc) and customise themes as well. I have been using the Preview version as it lets me open multiple apps on the same tab, rather than opening on different tabs. Thanks for your article!
That's awesome, I have installed Widows Terminal, just need to get comfortable using it 😅 will also see the how I can customize it 😊 any links you can share
This is my config if you want to use. I started using this article to help me, but then I found other articles I can't recall at the time. But it is pretty flexible and you can customise shortcuts as well.
Thank you look nice.
Seems your keyboard is near the table edge, and there's no place for elbows...
There is an extra Discrete palm rest that is provided in the box, though I use a wireless keyboard.
dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/...
That secondary screen ontop of the keyboard for terminals is awesome!
Yeah :)