Post by WDB on Aug 1, 2022 7:09:37 GMT
I’ve been revamping my home office space. Out has gone my old, Ikea-based desk, whose adjustable legs didn’t extend far enough for me. In is coming — once the Norwegian factory is back from its summer break — a taller chair with a cleverly balanced forward tilt to the seat. I already have the refurbed Herman Miller desk at a dizzy 82cm to combine with it. My (very) old Aeron chair, without the hip-saving forward tilt, will go to the classifieds.
But I’m also improving what sits on top. After years of dragging Excel content from the elevated laptop display to a 22in LG HDTV serving as a monitor, I’ve bought a curved 38in screen with as many pixels as the two old displays combined. So I can now run the laptop closed, with video, audio and power through one cable to the screen’s USB PD port.
All good, and much tidier. But I also use my seven-year-old MacBook Pro 13, with none of the corporate Dell’s USB-C trickery. Ideally, I’d like to give that a similar arrangement but it needs, as a minimum, separate power (MagSafe) and AV (mini-DP) cables. The screen also has KVM switching but I'm not sure the MacBook is clever enough to use it, so I may have to stick with my old daisychain arrangement of mouse through keyboard to USB port.
Unless, that is, there’s something I could dock it with. I’ve seen the vertical docks by Henge / Brydge that seem to do what I like, but they’re no longer made with the connections I need. There are various Thunderbolt 2-based units by the likes of Belkin but it’s not clear to me what I’d get from one of these, as I’d still need to move the power and keyboard cables myself.
So, the question: am I missing something obvious, or should I just go on plugging my own plugs until I decide it’s time to replace the old MacBook?
But I’m also improving what sits on top. After years of dragging Excel content from the elevated laptop display to a 22in LG HDTV serving as a monitor, I’ve bought a curved 38in screen with as many pixels as the two old displays combined. So I can now run the laptop closed, with video, audio and power through one cable to the screen’s USB PD port.
All good, and much tidier. But I also use my seven-year-old MacBook Pro 13, with none of the corporate Dell’s USB-C trickery. Ideally, I’d like to give that a similar arrangement but it needs, as a minimum, separate power (MagSafe) and AV (mini-DP) cables. The screen also has KVM switching but I'm not sure the MacBook is clever enough to use it, so I may have to stick with my old daisychain arrangement of mouse through keyboard to USB port.
Unless, that is, there’s something I could dock it with. I’ve seen the vertical docks by Henge / Brydge that seem to do what I like, but they’re no longer made with the connections I need. There are various Thunderbolt 2-based units by the likes of Belkin but it’s not clear to me what I’d get from one of these, as I’d still need to move the power and keyboard cables myself.
So, the question: am I missing something obvious, or should I just go on plugging my own plugs until I decide it’s time to replace the old MacBook?