For geeks/workaholics only
What a weird year we’ve had, huh? It feels like Covid has many of us cooped up - even if we are still going to an office instead of WFH, we’re not traveling outside of our home town or city that much. I’ve found myself spending a week at a time at the coast, in a friend’s vacation cabin that we can rent fairly cheaply, just to get the hell out of the city.
These aren’t vacations. I’m still working, but just in a different place and that’s kind of what I need.
So, I bring the laptop to work on at the cabin, and then the problem starts. The laptop keyboard is awful. There is only one screen. The laptop webcam is abysmal - what is Lenovo’s problem? The speakers don’t do justice even to Spotify. (I guess I sound kind of unhappy with this laptop, huh?) I always forget something - a cable, a dongle. The power cords don’t reach. There’s not enough USB ports. I feel like I’m fighting to get work done. I’d like to work really efficiently, get everything done, and knock off at 1 pm and head to the beach. But I find myself alt-tabbing between windows and cursing the mushy keys well into the evening.
Which brings me to my idea. I want to assemble a “travel office” which will be my laptop, two or three portable monitors, something to stand the monitors on, mini speakers, a full size keyboard that is a pleasure to type on, a wired mouse, headset, all the cables and dongles and powerstrips, calculator, notepad, even a pen. It will all live in an equipment case of some sort. The idea is that I can just grab the case and go, and set up a passable replacement for my office workstation, at the beach house or wherever, without any hassle or forgetting.
The office setup I want to make a travel approximation of is shown below. I can’t take that many screens on the road, but I’d sure like four including the laptop screen. Ideally the screens would be in a 2 x 2 grid.
What do you think? Anyone used “portable monitors”? They are pretty cheap in 15.6”, actually. Any ideas how I can make/adapt a monitor stand that will pack down and not weigh much? What very small powered speakers do you like? Is this ridiculous?