What are the must-have accessories for a new laptop setup?

Question

Finally moving from a desktop to a laptop for my freelance video work here in Chicago and I'm super stoked. My logic was just to reuse my old USB hub but it's totally bottlenecking my NVMe drive.

Got a 300 dollar budget to get this setup right by Monday. What are the must-have accessories for a pro mobile setup?

qpxhqggngl · Accepted Answer

Regarding what #2 said about "To add to the point above: these are..." honestly, he is spot on about the drive speed. But if you want to save some cash, dont buy pre-built external SSDs. I was in the same boat a few months ago and bought the Sabrent USB 3.2 Type-C Tool-Free Enclosure EC-SNVE to reuse an old drive. It works well, zero complaints, and it saved me like 50 bucks compared to buying a pre-made portable one. Plus it runs at full speed without bottlenecking. Also, since youre getting a stand, youre definitely gonna need a good mouse. I highly recommend the Logitech MX Master 3S Wireless Mouse. I have been using it for my video editing workflow for a year now and I am super satisfied. The side scroll wheel is an absolute lifesaver for scrubbing horizontal timelines in Premiere. Quick tip: make sure you plug wireless dongles into a USB 2.0 port or use Bluetooth. Sometimes these high-speed USB 3.0 hubs interfere with wireless signals and cause lag. Just a small thing that saves a lot of headaches. Let me know if you need any other recs!

oqwiuxefdj · Answer

I had issues with cheap hubs before and unfortunately one even fried my drive. They were just not as good as expected. For a reliable setup, I only trust these now:

CalDigit SOHO Dock USB-C 10Gbps - runs about 80 bucks and handles NVMe speeds safely.

Rain Design mStand Laptop Stand - stops overheating during long renders.