More Mobile: On the Road (Premium)

I was eagerly anticipating this trip to Mexico City for a lot of reasons, but one is to test my more mobile computing setup. And so far, it’s worked out nicely.

You can see most of my current home setup in More Mobile: The New Setup (Premium), from late November. I wouldn’t bring this full setup with me on most trips, but we’re in Mexico City for 18 days and I figured this would be a good time to see how mobile it truly is. Well, with a few substitutions so I could travel light and not have to check any bags. I think I arrived at a good compromise.

Obviously, the first item I considered was the laptop. Or, laptops: I usually bring two on trips that are this long, and in this case I needed the second one to have a clean install of Windows 11 so I can use it to take screenshots for the book. I’m using the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 for that, so that was a given. For my primary laptop, I had been hoping to take the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 that I wrote about briefly here and here, but HP had sent it for an early preview only and it wasn’t particularly usable in its current, prerelease state. (And I’ve already sent it back as requested.) But the Dragonfly’s 3:2 display and general form factor inspired me to use the very similar HP Spectre x360 14. And that seems to be a good choice.

For the laptop stand, I went with the Nexstand Portable Laptop Stand I had been using through the end of November because it is much, much lighter than the Lifelong Ergonomic Laptop Stand I’m now using at home, and much more portable. Indeed, because it collapses down into a closed umbrella-like shape, I was able to carry it on in my laptop bag, an HP Renew Backpack that I purchased at the end of 2020: unlike the Rick Steves Velocé Shoulder Bag that I usually use, this one can easily carry two laptops with a lot of other gear too.

At home, I use a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Wireless Keyboard and Mouse and I almost brought them along (in my luggage). But things were a little tight, so I went small with a Lenovo ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard with TrackPoint that I’ve had for a few years. This survived my 2021 decluttering purge for just this reason, and while it’s no more ergonomic than a laptop keyboard, it lets me use the laptop on the laptop stand and still have a keyboard and mouse/pointer available in a minimal amount of space. And as with the keyboard stand, I was able to bring this in the HP Renew Backpack.

I have a fairly large podcasting setup at home that consists of a Heil PR 40 microphone with PL2T Boom Mount and a Focusrite Scarlett Solo USB interface. But this isn’t at all portable, and so I brought along the Audio-Technica ATR2500x-USB Cardioid Condenser Microphone I had purchased before last October’s trip to Paris. (I carry this on now because it got pulled out in security during that trip, no doubt because it looks like a pipe bomb; I just put it in the security tray with the laptops.) And speaking of podcasting, one day, I’ll have a laptop with a terrific webcam. But today is not that day, so I brought the trustworthy and venerable Logitech C920 as well.

What ties this all together is the Anker PowerExpand 8-in-1 USB-C hub that I purchased back in October (and the UGREEN USB C Extension Cable I got in November).

I could power it with the HP’s power supply, but since the Anker PowerPort III 65W Pod Lite USB-C charger and 6-foot Apple USB-C Charge Cable I purchased in November are so portable, I packed them, too, and I just leave them attached to the dock. (And can use the HP power supply elsewhere if needed or on a side-trip.)

This setup seems to work well, but I’ve only been using it for podcasts: I work directly on the laptop either at the kitchen table or while laying down on the bed, which is pretty typical for me when I travel. Helping matters, the Internet connection here is both high-speed (200 Mbps over 60 Mbps) and reliable, at least so far, and I have the USB-C dock connected to the router via Ethernet for even better stability. It’s a nice setup.

Looking to the future, I’d probably use the hub/laptop stand setup more if I had my full keyboard and mouse. I’m really hoping that 2022 is the year I get a laptop with a truly great webcam. And while I had recently purchased a Neewer 14-inch Outer Dimmable LED Ring Light Kit to improve my podcast lighting, this may have been a mistake since it’s not at all portable: there are smaller units you can clip right to a desktop or laptop display, so I may look into that later in 2022.

But overall, I’m happy with the setup I brought. And I feel like it goes a long way towards proving that a more mobile setup is viable, both at home and on the road.