More Mobile: Mexico City Changes (Premium)

My wife and I both use More Mobile setups here in Mexico City that consist of a laptop, a USB-C hub or Thunderbolt Dock docking station, and an external keyboard and mouse. These setups somewhat mirror what we use back home: My wife uses a 27-inch desktop display with her laptop screen as a secondary display, while I've moved between several configurations and eventually shifted back to a desktop rig in my home office because I review so many laptops and I need something stable for all the podcasts I review. That setup now has two 27-inch displays, though I typically only use one, with the second enabled during podcasts so I can put the show notes off to the side.

It's interesting how much has changed. And how little has changed.

I first experimented with a highly portable More Mobile setup during our first lengthy stay in Mexico City, in January 2022. That setup consisted of a lot of equipment I still use regularly here and at home and can highly recommend, including an Anker 555 8-in-1 USB-C hub (I now own two) with a UGREEN USB-C extension cable, an Audio-Technica ATR2500x-USB cardioid condenser microphone, and a Nexstand portable laptop stand.

But since that trip, we bought the apartment, which changed things for us dramatically. Among those changes, we started leaving behind More Mobile setups for us to use each time we came here.

To date, my wife has brought her laptop back and forth because, well, it's her laptop, and she uses it everywhere. But she keeps an IKEA tablet stand here for her laptop, plus one of our Anker USB-C hubs, a 15-inch USB-C external display, a full-sized standalone keyboard, and a mouse.

My setup here has evolved a bit over time, and because I don't have a home office here---I just work from a kitchen table we've never once eaten at and probably never will---I take it apart and pack it into a storage bin after each trip so that any guests who stay here while we're away don't have to deal with it. But the basics haven't changed since this May 2022 write-up: There's an HP Thunderbolt 4 Dock, a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard and Mouse (no longer available but coming back soon), and that Audio-Technica microphone, as before. But since then, I upgraded the portable laptop stand with a Lifelong ergonomic laptop stand that I hoped would be more stable (and was a PIA to bring here in my carry-on) and a Dell 4K webcam.

It's worked out OK. But I've wanted to fix various issues with the setup for a long time. And now that we've finally left enough stuff here in the apartment that we may never need to bring clothes and other items with us when we travel here, I've started trying to address them.

Some of the issues are specific to the apartment, which has three rooms, not counting the bathrooms and utility/laundry room. I work in the biggest of those rooms, a sort of all-in-one living room/kitchen space that occupies 50 percent of the total floor plan, and it's a big space that echoes enough that i...