What I Use: June 2020 (Premium)

It’s been a while since I last wrote about the hardware, software, and services on which I rely every day. But with pandemic and its stay-at-home requirements emphasizing what’s really important, I thought this might be an interesting time to take another look.

As you may recall, I do write up a What I Use post for each of our home swaps; the last two were from Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 2019 and Stockholm, Sweden in 2018. But assuming our site search is accurate---not a good assumption---I don’t think I’ve published an all-up What I Use post since the end of 2018/beginning of 2019.

So let’s see what’s changed.

Note: When I’ve written about or reviewed a product mentioned here, I link to that article. But there are some affiliate links too. I literally only earn tens of dollars per month with these links and use the money, such as it is, to fund tech purchases that, yes, I almost always write about on this site.
Computers
As always, I have a core set of daily-use PCs---typically a desktop PC and one or two laptops---that I use aside from whatever products I happen to be testing. With the COVID-19 pandemic making travel impossible for at least several months, however, testing portable PCs, in particular, has been more difficult. And I find that I’ve returned again and again to a core set of devices that I trust and prefer.
Desktop PC
I’ve been using a new-generation Intel NUC 10---a fully-configured NUC10i7FNH with a 10th-generation “Frost Canyon” Core i7-10710U processor, 16 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of SSD storage---for over three months now, and I love it. I love it because it just works, and while this shouldn’t be unusual or unexpected, even the PCs I usually use and prefer don’t always meet this requirement.

(If you listen/watch First Ring Daily, you may recall some self-inflicted issues I had with the NUC a few weeks back. I won’t hold what I did against it.)

I still use the same basic set of peripherals, which of course move from desktop PC to desktop PC. These include a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Wireless Desktop Keyboard and Mouse, which I highly recommend, a Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920, which definitely needs an upgrade, and a Focusrite Scarlett Solo (2nd Gen) USB Audio Interface and a Heil PR 40 microphone with PL2T Boom Mount that I use for podcasting.

New to this setup since the last write-up is an HP 345495 Business Z27n G2 27-inch LED display that I purchased from Amazon.com in August 2019. This is a 1440p (2560 x 1440) display with a nice range of inputs---USB-C 3.1, DisplayPort 1.2, DVI-D, and HDMI 1.4---plus an outbound USB-C 3.1 port that can be used to power a smartphone (with 15-watts) and 3 USB 3.0 ports for connectivity. It’s bright but not at all glossy, so it’s perfect for work. I’m really happy with it.

Also new, and required by the new display, since it doesn’t have any built-in audio, is a pair of Edifier R1010BT bookshelf speakers. I ...