{"id":1017,"date":"2025-08-23T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/whats-on-your-desk-dominic-preston\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T15:00:00","slug":"whats-on-your-desk-dominic-preston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/whats-on-your-desk-dominic-preston\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s on your desk, Dominic Preston?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Not all of <\/em>The Verge\u2019s staff live in the US. For example, news editor Dominic Preston is based in London and is, as he says, \u201cresponsible for keeping our news coverage ticking over in UK mornings before the US team comes online.\u201d He also curates our new <\/em>Verge Daily newsletter and covers Android phones, especially all the models that don\u2019t launch in the US.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And outside of work? \u201cI\u2019m a bit of a food obsessive,\u201d he says, \u201cand run a <\/em>newsletter called <\/em>Braise<\/a> where I review London restaurants and cookbooks, and occasionally try my own hand at recipe writing. That means I spend most of my free time cooking, eating, or thinking about food, and so also a decent amount of time in the gym trying to make up for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Where is your workspace located?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an office that I share with my partner in our flat in London. It used to be a second bedroom, but now we\u2019ve kitted it out with two desks and a sofa bed for the occasional times we actually have guests to stay. My partner is a PhD student, so her working hours are a bit unpredictable, and split between here and school \u2014\u00a0which means that 90 percent of the time I\u2019ve got the office to myself.<\/p>\n

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Could you tell us about your desk(s)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We both have standing desks. Mine is an Autonomous SmartDesk 2<\/a> that\u2019s electronic and automatic, hers an old pneumatic model by Bakker Elkhuizen that they don\u2019t make anymore, which annoys her because it requires a bit of effort to shift up and down. They\u2019re both decorated with self-healing cutting mats, which are still occasionally used for arts and crafts (or as the backdrop for my product<\/a> photos<\/a>) but mostly double as giant mouse mats.<\/p>\n

You have both a chair and a walking station. What are they, and how well do they work for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The chair is a secondhand Herman Miller. It actually used to be my partner\u2019s, while I sat in a big Duelhawk Jet Black PU gaming chair (also no longer available), until we each realized we preferred the other\u2019s seat and swapped. I\u2019m old enough, and sore enough, to be willing to invest a little in the chair I\u2019ll be using every day anyway.<\/p>\n

The walking pad is a pretty cheap one from Mobvoi<\/a>. I actually bought it immediately after reading a piece by my colleague Victoria Song on a different Mobvoi model<\/a>, and following her advice I\u2019ve made no attempt to touch its smart features or track my workouts; so far it\u2019s served me well. I just use it as slow as it goes, and try to spend as much of every morning walking on it as possible \u2014 on a good day I\u2019ll rack up two or three hours of steady walking time; on a bad day I\u2019ll keep putting it off until the coffee hits and never quite get going. Either way, I let myself sit down for the afternoon, which is more likely to be concentrated writing time \u2014 I find it hard to do anything too creative or complicated while walking at the same time.<\/p>\n

(I know, I know, my cable management isn\u2019t great. I tend to be very tidy, but cables are one of the few things I absolutely don\u2019t have the patience to organize. Sadly, having a standing desk really lays bare those sins, so I may have to force myself to get better about it.)<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s the long one: tell us about the various tech devices you\u2019re using.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My current setup is slightly awkwardly trapped between my work and personal computers, though I have some plans in the works to improve it.<\/p>\n

My work machine is an M2 MacBook Air, which lives propped up on a Ugreen laptop stand<\/a>. It\u2019s connected to the monitor on the right, a cheap 24-inch QHD Philips model<\/a> that I bought in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The confusing part of my setup is that second monitor, an embarrassingly old Acer one. That\u2019s because I\u2019ve also got a desktop PC that I use outside of work, and that<\/em> connects to both monitors. At the end of the work day I can flip the MacBook shut, and my personal setup is good to go. It\u2019s all unnecessarily cluttered, though, especially since the MacBook can\u2019t support both external monitors at once, so this year\u2019s big upgrade will probably be a 32-inch 4K monitor to replace the pair of them. I\u2019ll happily take any recommendations from the comments!<\/p>\n

My keyboard is the Logitech MX Keys S<\/a>, which I love. I\u2019m as much of a sucker for a good mechanical board as the next guy, but I love low-profile, full-size keyboards, and good mechanical options in that space are few and far between. I used to use a Hexgears Venture, but I ran it into the ground eventually, and this has served me well since.<\/p>\n

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Logitech MX Keys S<\/h3>\n
\"Keyboard<\/figure>\n

Where to Buy:<\/h3>\n