Independent buying guides
For people working from a spare room, a corner or a kitchen table. Each guide answers one question, cites standards and manufacturer dimensions with check dates, and shows the formula in the workstation cost calculator.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Four measurements decide whether a home office works. Take them first, then split the budget 45/30/25 between chair, desk and screen.
Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Depreciation, electricity and the parts that wear out. A $900 workstation kept five years costs about $207 a year, or 83 cents a working day.
Photo: By Free-Photos from Pixabay · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Setting up
Six steps, 30 minutes, in the order that stops you redoing them. Chair first, then the screen to OSHA's published distances and angles.
Photo: Petiatil · CC BY-SA 3.0 us · Wikimedia Commons
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
1
Photo: By Free-Photos from Pixabay · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Like-for-like comparisons on the specifications that matter.
0
Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
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Photo: Tran Mau Tri Tam tranmautritam · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the numbers mean in day-to-day use.
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Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
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Photo: Carl Albert Research and Studies Center, Congressional Collection · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Spreads purchase price, consumables and repairs over the years you expect to keep it.
cost per year = (purchase price - expected resale value + consumables per year x years + expected repairs) / years
Annual electricity cost from rated power, hours of use and your own tariff.
annual cost = power (W) / 1000 x hours per day x days per year x price per kWh, plus standby power (W) / 1000 x standby hours x days x price per kWh
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
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