Postcards and a Mac: Niléane’s Desk Setup

It’s been a while since I last showed off my desk. The last time I did so as part of MacStories Weekly Issue 405 in February, I had just acquired an 11-inch iPad Pro, and my desk looked quite different than it does now. It had an imposing corner shelf holding a variety of plushies, accessories, and other knickknacks, in addition to providing support for my microphone arm. Overall, it felt a lot more cluttered than it does now.

As the months went on, I’ve had to rethink my desktop layout to accommodate the many changes that I’ve made to my device usage. Now more than ever, my M2 MacBook Air is at the center of everything I do – so much so that the iPad Pro is now nothing more than an eBook reader for me and rarely lives on my desk as a result. This summer, we also launched Comfort Zone, a new weekly show in the MacStories family of podcasts. Since Comfort Zone is both an audio and video podcast, I started recording video at my desk for the first time ever, which also meant that I had to tweak my desk to optimize it for lighting and a new microphone setup.

In the end, these changes have added up to a completely new desk setup. So today, I’m going to take you on a quick desk tour. Let me walk you through the main highlights of what makes this desk my favorite little corner in our home.

First, I should once again address that this is a small desk tucked into a small space. For some context, my partner and I live in a three-room apartment in Grenoble, France. While this means that we get to enjoy great views of the French Alps from most of our windows, it also means that we’ve had to reach a compromise to keep our workspaces separate during the day. As a result, my partner got to install their sizable desk in the dedicated spare room, and I got to settle mine in our bedroom. This is the main reason why I have to keep my desk space cozy and compact.

My desk corner in our main bedroom.

The main thing you may notice when looking at my desk is the monitor hooked up to my M2 MacBook Air. It’s the 28.2-inch Huawei MateView, which I grabbed on sale a couple of years ago for about $450.1 Huawei is not usually a brand that inspires confidence in me. And yet, I absolutely love this monitor and its unusual 3:2 aspect ratio. It makes for a taller, narrower canvas that is perfect for browsing the web (allowing you to see more of a web page at once) or working on designs in Figma, and it’s still comfortably wide enough for watching videos and playing videogames. For a monitor of this price, I’ve also been pretty impressed with the decent color accuracy and apparent contrast ratio that it provides at a 4K resolution. While I would probably save for a more expensive display today, I’m going to hold on to this one for as long as I can — mostly because I fear going back to a standard 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio now.

The M2 MacBook Air sits on a TwelveSouth HiRise Pro stand that’s height-adjustable and made of sturdy aluminum. I used to keep the Mac closed in a vertical stand tucked behind the monitor, but I’ve come to realize how handy it is being able to occasionally open it to use the built-in display alongside my main screen. I do this when I’m on video calls to keep the call window visible while I’m working, or when I want to watch a video on the side. Otherwise, I like to keep the MacBook lid closed and focus on a single screen.

Between the Mac and the monitor, I’ve installed a Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Dock Pro. I’ve owned this dock for a long time, and it still works perfectly enough today that I’ve not felt the need to upgrade to a newer, more expensive Thunderbolt 4 dock. It offers two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one full-sized DisplayPort, an Ethernet port, five USB-A ports (including one on the front), a standard USB-C port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and one front-facing SD card slot. Almost everything on my desk, including a Belkin height-adjustable MagSafe stand for my iPhone, is now hooked to the Mac by this dock, and I’ve still got ports to spare.

The Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Dock Pro

I’ve settled on this Belkin height-adjustable MagSafe stand, which perfectly fits under the monitor at its lowest height.

In my last desk setup showcase, I was using a Blue Yeti microphone for calls and the occasional podcast recording. This microphone is still in great condition and is now being used by my partner as part of their own desk setup. The reason I let it go is that I was not quite satisfied with how it made me sound. My voice already sounds deeper than I would like, and I found that the Yeti exacerbated that impression. So now, I’m using the Audio-Technica ATR2100X microphone.

This one isn’t perfect by any means, but it sounds a lot closer to what I want, and most importantly, it is very affordable. Another positive aspect about the ATR2100X is that it can connect via both XLR and USB-C. Since I didn’t want to invest in an audio interface just yet, this straightforward connectivity was perfect for me. The microphone is connected directly to the Belkin dock via USB-C, and I always keep a 3.5mm to Lightning cable dangling from its built-in headphone jack so I can use my AirPods Max for monitoring while I record Comfort Zone.

The microphone sits on the Elgato Wave Mic Arm LP.2 This microphone arm caused me quite a few headaches in the past few months. As you may have noticed, my desk has two built-in drawers that I find incredibly useful to store cables, medications, and other items that I need on a daily basis. However, the drawback of these drawers is that I simply can’t use the built-in clamp that comes with this microphone arm (or any other microphone arm) to attach it to the side of the desk. Elgato has a solution for this: the Heavy Base. You can use the Heavy Base’s offset mount to attach the Wave Mic Arm LP, then simply set the base down on your desk. This is perfect if your desk is too thick to accommodate a clamp. Unfortunately, for the past few months, the Heavy Base was out of stock pretty much everywhere I looked, and when retailers had one in stock, they always had the old version without the offset mount. In the end, it was only this month that I was finally able to order one from a German music store. It works exactly as intended, and the arm is firmly mounted to the base and stable.

My Audio-Technica ATR2100X attached to the Elgato Wave Mic Arm LP, itself mounted to the Elgato Heavy Base

When it comes to recording video for the podcast, all I use is an old iPhone SE from 2020. This phone used to belong to my partner, and today it barely holds a charge. But despite the iPhone SE’s age and its smaller camera sensor, the video quality is still miles ahead of most off-the-shelf webcams, and it has been serving me well for video calls over the past few years, and now Comfort Zone on YouTube. To mount the iPhone on my desk, I’ve come up with a somewhat hacky solution. With the help of a MagSafe-compatible case, I’ve attached the iPhone to a Belkin MagSafe mount, which itself is mounted on top of the beautiful LEGO Orchid set. Yes, I know; I’m a genius.

Despite the hacky vibes of this camera mounting contraption, I just love how I’ve been able to revive this phone as a webcam thanks to Continuity Camera on macOS. If you have an older iPhone lying around in a closet, I highly recommend trying to use it as a webcam. It’s a pretty good bargain.

Here’s my genius video recording contraption made out of an old iPhone SE, a MagSafe mount, and a LEGO plant.

To light up the desk, I use the BenQ ScreenBar Halo, which John reviewed on MacStories. This light bar is perched on top of my monitor and is able to shine a diffuse glow behind the monitor, as well as down in front of the monitor where my Magic Keyboard and Trackpad are. The result is a super cozy vibe both at night and during the day. Purchasing the ScreenBar Halo prevented me from going down the rabbit hole of setting up a couple of light strips around the back of the desk, so I’m glad I went this route instead. It has been a wonderful addition to this atmosphere of this workspace corner.

In addition to the ScreenBar Halo on top of my monitor, I’ve also recently added the Elgato Key Light Neo. The Key Light Neo is a more affordable alternative to the company’s larger Key Lights, and it’s a great way to light yourself up on camera without taking up too much space on an already crowded desk. I’ve been using it for the past two Comfort Zone recordings, and it’s done a lot to improve the look of my video feed.

My monitor holds both the BenQ ScreenBar Halo and the Elgato Key Light Neo.

I’m a firm believer that good lighting and color choices are not enough to ensure that a desk looks and feels like a cozy corner where you’d want to spend ten hours at a time. For this reason, even though the corner shelf filled with plushies and knickknacks is gone, I still wanted to keep my field of view filled with fun and cute items. So you’ll probably be able to spot a tiny Baby Yoda figurine, a third-generation iPod Nano, and a yellow corgi-shaped fidget toy lying about the surface of the desk.

On the wall, I’ve hung a sample of my collection of favorite postcards. Those include a set of beautiful (and colorful) postcards from our last Berlin trip hugging the left wall, as well as postcards from my home island of La Réunion surrounding Stephen Hackett’s 2024 Apple History Calendar. I would like to say that I’ve arranged them in a specific and thoughtfully-considered pattern, but the only real pattern here is vibes.

Now, obviously, this setup will keep evolving. On my list of probable additions in the near future is an audio interface and a second yellow HomePod mini so I can finally listen to music in stereo when I’m not wearing headphones. I’m also not quite satisfied with my keyboard situation. I’m still using Apple’s Magic Keyboard, and the only real reason is that I can’t imagine myself doing without its built-in Touch ID sensor.

Still, I think I’ve reached a good place with this desk corner. I’ve been able to keep all of it contained, and so far, my partner is glad that our bedroom has not been overrun with my tech devices and accessories. Most crucially, this small corner feels like a space where I enjoy spending time, from early in the morning all the way to sleepless nights.

The 28.2-inch Huawei MateView seems to have been discontinued sometime in 2023. ↩

“LP” stands for “low profile”. ↩