::: MIC ::: too often I heard people in Zoom / Teams / Meet sounded so bad, at times I couldn't hear what they're saying.
Cheap gaming microphones, like my HyperX Solocast, is massive change from those. It's probably the best bang for the buck of all other accessories that I bought so far.
::: NOISE-CANCELLING USB MIC DONGLE ::: sometimes my work environment can be very noisy and nothing I can do about it. In those cases I plug my mic into Asus Noise Canceling adapter - and instantly all the noises are gone: https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Noise-Canceling-Artificial-Intel...
At $35, it's an absolute steal.
Unfortunately it only accepts 3.5 mm jack as input - so no joy for the USB mics.
::: EARPHONE ::: when I'm mobile or need to use my Asus Noise Canceling dongle above - I use Apple Earpods.
It's light, it's very comfortable inside my ear for prolonged periods, it sounds amazing, even better than some of my expensive wireless headphones, and it include mic as well, a good quality one too.
::: WEBCAM ::: at first I was like the others, and use Logitech's webcam.
Soon I found out that even its most expensive one suffer from stupid AF (autofocus) problem - it kept making my face out of focus at random times, it's so embarrassing.
So after checking many reviews; I bought Nexigo N60 - and I still can't believe a webcam this cheap actually produces better picture than my previous more expensive webcam, wow. And no more stupid AF. And it works straight away in Linux.
It also claim to have noise-canceling mic, but I haven't tested it yet.
::: PORTRAIT MONITOR ::: I bought a cheap HP E190i monitor - which can be turned into a portrait monitor.
Suddenly editing documents, Terminal/SSH, etc become much, much more comfortable.
::: Ultrawide Screen Monitor ::: it's a game changer - bought LG ultrawide monitor, and it's so comfortable.
I can put 2 portrait document side-by-side, and quickly compare them, or reference from each other, etc.
Not to mention editing those wide spreadsheets is becoming so much more bearable now.
It's also so much nicer watching movie and playing games using it.
::: GAS-SPRING MONITOR MOUNT::: use it to mount the ultrawide monitor above ; and it's even more comfortably positioned + frees up so much desk space.
::: VACUUM-COOLER ::: my brand-new laptop used to suddenly slowed down to a crawl at times, not only puzzling but of course also, very, frustrating.
Turned out it's unable to expel heat efficiently. Damn this thin laptops.
So I plugged a vacuum cooler on its exhaust port - and instantly it no longer throttled the CPU at random times, yay.
It's now able to consistently run at its peak frequency.
When gaming though it still overheats. I've bought a Carbonaut pad, from Thermal Grizzly. It's supposed to conduct heat about 5 times better than a thermal paste, so hopefully it'll help.
Cheap gaming microphones, like my HyperX Solocast, is massive change from those. It's probably the best bang for the buck of all other accessories that I bought so far.
::: NOISE-CANCELLING USB MIC DONGLE ::: sometimes my work environment can be very noisy and nothing I can do about it. In those cases I plug my mic into Asus Noise Canceling adapter - and instantly all the noises are gone: https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Noise-Canceling-Artificial-Intel...
At $35, it's an absolute steal.
Unfortunately it only accepts 3.5 mm jack as input - so no joy for the USB mics.
::: EARPHONE ::: when I'm mobile or need to use my Asus Noise Canceling dongle above - I use Apple Earpods.
It's light, it's very comfortable inside my ear for prolonged periods, it sounds amazing, even better than some of my expensive wireless headphones, and it include mic as well, a good quality one too.
At $16, it's a steal: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-EarPods-3-5mm-Headphone-Plug/dp...
::: WEBCAM ::: at first I was like the others, and use Logitech's webcam.
Soon I found out that even its most expensive one suffer from stupid AF (autofocus) problem - it kept making my face out of focus at random times, it's so embarrassing.
So after checking many reviews; I bought Nexigo N60 - and I still can't believe a webcam this cheap actually produces better picture than my previous more expensive webcam, wow. And no more stupid AF. And it works straight away in Linux.
It also claim to have noise-canceling mic, but I haven't tested it yet.
https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-NexiGo-Computer-110-degree...
::: PORTRAIT MONITOR ::: I bought a cheap HP E190i monitor - which can be turned into a portrait monitor.
Suddenly editing documents, Terminal/SSH, etc become much, much more comfortable.
::: Ultrawide Screen Monitor ::: it's a game changer - bought LG ultrawide monitor, and it's so comfortable.
I can put 2 portrait document side-by-side, and quickly compare them, or reference from each other, etc.
Not to mention editing those wide spreadsheets is becoming so much more bearable now.
It's also so much nicer watching movie and playing games using it.
::: GAS-SPRING MONITOR MOUNT::: use it to mount the ultrawide monitor above ; and it's even more comfortably positioned + frees up so much desk space.
::: VACUUM-COOLER ::: my brand-new laptop used to suddenly slowed down to a crawl at times, not only puzzling but of course also, very, frustrating.
Turned out it's unable to expel heat efficiently. Damn this thin laptops.
So I plugged a vacuum cooler on its exhaust port - and instantly it no longer throttled the CPU at random times, yay.
It's now able to consistently run at its peak frequency.
When gaming though it still overheats. I've bought a Carbonaut pad, from Thermal Grizzly. It's supposed to conduct heat about 5 times better than a thermal paste, so hopefully it'll help.