Coding Desk Setup | Software Engineer WFH

Life is here
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57 Video Views·Oct 24, 2022
Today, I built my WFH desk setup! This video was sponsored by Brilliant. Keep exploring at http://brilliant.org/AlexLiu/ Get started for free, and hurry—the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription!
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So I've been living at my apartment for about a month now, however I've yet to build a work
from home setup. Over the past week I've been accumulating a bunch of packages,
however I've been really busy with work so I haven't had any time to open these.
By the end of today's video hopefully I've made my work from home setup.
So this is my desk but it's pretty heavy so I think I'm gonna need some help.
Alright so I just unpacked my desk and I just checked that it perfectly fits in this corner.
I was really worried that when I ordered the desk it would be too big to fit in this small space
but thankfully it is just perfect. So now time to assemble the legs.
So I just finished getting the desk out of the box. The legs are really heavy actually,
like these bits of metal probably weigh a couple kilos.
And I did go for an Ikea desk, I chose the trotton
and I went for the black and white colour scheme to match my soulless room.
So I just finished setting up my table and it fits perfectly in the corner of my room.
So I went for a really wide desk and that is because I couldn't get a very long one
just because of my room dimensions. So I decided to go for quite a deep desk.
I quite like having a deep desk because I can put my
like whole arm on the table or just like lean against it.
And there's a lot more space to like have a keyboard, monitor,
I just need a lot of space in my desk basically. But now on to the monitor setup.
So I decided to go for a two monitor setup and I got two 32 inch monitors.
They're in these massive boxes here. So yeah, let's unpack them.
So
it took me quite a while in the end to set all of this up.
It's now the next day and I basically did all the cabling off camera.
But I've got to say the setup is looking pretty clean right now.
At least from the top, it looks pretty clean.
Underneath, there's still a bit of cable management I could do.
So at the heart of this setup, I have this Ikea desk.
It's the trotton and it's the 120 by 70 centimetre version.
I went for the white desk paired with the black anthracite legs
to match the colour scheme of my room.
Then for the monitors, I'm going with a two monitor setup.
They are both 4K.
The monitors are the Ezio EV3285 flex scan monitors.
And besides looking good, I think the best part about these monitors
is it allows charging through their USB-C ports.
So you only need one cable to connect into your laptop
if you want to display something on the monitor as well as charge it.
So the main driver of this setup is my PC.
I bought this early last year at kind of a bad time.
I think the graphics card prices were at like a local high
and also they were pretty rare at the time
because everyone was buying them for Bitcoin mining.
So I mostly use this PC for gaming, editing videos and coding.
So this little ThinkStation is a tiny mini PC and it's my work PC.
I like it because it's really small so it doesn't really clutter my desk
and it means I don't have two massive PC towers underneath my desk.
All I use it for is SSHing into my work PC in the office
when I'm working from home.
So in the end, it doesn't need to be really powerful.
So for my keyboard, I'm using the Logitech MX keys
and this actually replaced my Apple Magic keyboard
that I was using last year.
I prefer the Logitech MX keys now
because it allows you to connect to three different devices
using these keyboard shortcuts.
So I pair it to my PC, my work PC and my MacBook.
That just means I can have one keyboard for all three devices
and I can just change the connectivity using the press of a button
and it just improves my productivity
because I spend less time unplugging and plugging in a keyboard
or repairing it to another device.
It also has a very similar vibe to the Apple Magic keyboard
so I'm very used to it.
It's very low profile keys and they are clicky as well.
I'm not really into keyboards that much.
I don't really know anything about keyboard switches.
I'll literally use anything.
For the first few years of uni,
I was literally just using a standard like five pound keyboard
that I got from home.
So for my mouse, I'm using the Logitech MX mouse
and this mouse is very popular among programmers.
I think it's because of the unlocked scroll wheel.
It allows you to scroll lots of lines of code
or just scroll anything really quickly
and to be honest, it's actually just really fun to fidget with the scroll wheel.
It has side buttons and also side scrolling
so it's very good for shortcuts and also scrolling horizontal pages.
So that's what makes this mouse very popular amongst programmers.
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So yeah thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video.
Anyway back to the setup.
For my headset I'm using the HyperX Cloud 2s.
I think the mic quality is really clear
and also it's comfy around the ears as well as being really affordable
and then I also bought this headset mount
which mounts underneath the desk
and you can just hang your headphones off it
so you don't have to clutter your desk when you're not using your headphones.
And then for my personal laptop
I have the M1 MacBook Pro in the 16-inch version.
It's a really powerful laptop
and I use it for editing and coding on the go
when I don't have access to my PC.
So for example when I'm traveling
I can still edit videos and upload them whilst I'm away.
So in terms of video editing
the M1 MacBook is actually very comparable to my PC's performance.
Like rendering times is pretty much similar for a 15-minute video
which is really surprising because my PC is way heavier
the graphics card is just bigger
and the laptop is just so portable.
So for my gaming setup I kind of switch out my keyboard and mouse.
For my keyboard I'm using this mechanical gaming keyboard
called the ROG Strix Scope PBT.
As I said I don't really know much about keyboards
but it just does the job for gaming.
And then for my mouse I use the wireless Razer Viper.
It's really light and also comfortable
and it's much more suitable for gaming than my MX mouse.
And that's pretty much it for my setup.
It's pretty basic, minimalistic I'd say.
I have most of the time I just have one keyboard and mouse on my desk.
I'd like to keep it pretty clean
but maybe in the future I'll put in some desk ornaments.
I also need to get some speakers.
My PC right now is using the monitor speakers
and they do the job but the sound quality is just not that good.
So I end up having to use my headset a lot of the time.
And then finally to complete the setup I need to get a proper desk chair
because right now I'm using the dining room chair.
But yeah that's it for this desk setup video.
I hope you guys enjoyed watching.
I'll link everything in the description box below
and I'll see you guys soon.
