Independent buying guides
For anyone in the UK fitting a working desk into a spare room or an alcove. One buying question per guide, measurements and prices with their check dates, and calculators that print the arithmetic they use.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Measure the alcove before you shop. Desk depth decides viewing distance, chair range decides posture, and the monitor label decides the running cost.
Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Equipment spread over its life, electricity at the Ofgem cap, and the heating nobody counts. A working desk costs about £405 a year on these figures.
Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Setting up
The Display Screen Equipment Schedule is a short checklist, not a manual. Here is what it requires, plus HSE's own figures on how often to break.
Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Tran Mau Tri Tam tranmautritam · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Like-for-like comparisons on the specifications that matter.
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Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Carl Albert Research and Studies Center, Congressional Collection · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
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Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans · CC BY 2.0 · 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: Richard001 · Public domain · 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.
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