Independent buying guides
For anyone setting up a working desk in a Canadian apartment, basement or spare room. Each guide answers a single question, names its sources and the date they were checked, and shows the arithmetic behind every total.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Desk depth is a viewing-distance decision and desk width is a monitor-count decision. Measure the room first, then let the numbers eliminate most of the catalogue.
Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Six items, the tax the till adds, the years you keep each one, and the electricity. An example $1,530 kit costs $246.99 a year spread over seven years.
Photo: By Free-Photos from Pixabay · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Setting up
Screen distance and height, elbow height, seat depth, footrest and standing height. Six numbers from a tape measure, each tied to a published figure.
Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · 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: Tran Mau Tri Tam tranmautritam · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
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Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
What the numbers mean in day-to-day use.
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Photo: Carl Albert Research and Studies Center, Congressional Collection · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
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Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans · CC BY 2.0 · 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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