The dev desk shelf: hubs, chargers, test devices and books for app makers

This shelf is the answer to a question we get from readers more than any other: what do you actually need on a desk to build and test apps? Not much, it turns out, but the few things that matter tend to be the ones people buy last. A charger that can feed a laptop and three phones at once. Cables that carry data and not only power. A stand that keeps a test phone upright while you read the logs.

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Ports and power

Start with the laptop. A USB-C hub turns one port into a monitor connection, a couple of USB-A sockets for older cables and a card reader, and passes power through so the laptop keeps charging. Before you choose one, our guide to setting up a mobile developer's desk explains the three numbers to read on the box: power delivery, data speed per port and the display output.

Then the charger. One multi-port wall charger keeps the laptop and the test phones topped up without stealing power from the hub. Pair it with cables rated for laptop charging, so you can stop guessing which cable in the drawer is which.

A small test device set

Real devices still catch problems that emulators miss: thermal throttling, a camera that behaves differently, a vendor skin that kills background work. Michał's piece on building a small Android test device lab covers which roles to fill and how to buy refurbished phones safely. The parts around the phones are easy to overlook, so here they are.

If you only need to label cables and chargers, a handheld labeler is enough. A bigger shelf of phones that all stay plugged in calls for a hub with more ports.

The phones and tablets themselves are usually best bought refurbished: a two-year-old flagship with a clean battery report tests the same screen sizes and OS versions as a new one for a fraction of the price. Check the seller's return window and the battery health before you buy, and pick models from your own analytics.

Refurbished on eBay: Android phones · iPhones · Android tablets · iPads · MacBooks

Stands, a second screen and the cables underneath

A phone lying flat on the desk gets tilted, picks up glare and slides away when you tap near the top. An upright stand at eye level fixes all three. A portable second screen earns its place for anyone who works from a laptop half the week: simulator or design file on one side, code on the other. And a cable box under the desk hides the power strip that otherwise collects dust and chargers.

When the desk is set up, the icon and screenshot size tool is the next stop for anyone getting a build ready for the stores.

The reading shelf

Books age slower than gadgets. These are the ones our writers recommend most often to colleagues, grouped by the job they help with.

Conference travel kit

Event days are long on battery and short on sockets. A talk, two workshops and an evening meetup can drain a phone, a test device and a laptop well before you are back at the hotel, and the outlets at most venues are taken by noon. A power bank and a plug adapter go in our bags for every trip abroad; our notes on getting ready for a conference cover the rest of the packing list.

A smaller power bank is enough for phones and a test device. Anyone who runs a laptop through a workshop needs a bigger one with USB-C ports that can feed a laptop at 100 W. Many travel adapters have no earth pin, so grounded laptop bricks need their own plug.

What we leave off, and one thing for the road

There are no new phones on this page. Which models you need depends on who uses your app, the right choice changes every few months, and buying carrier-free or refurbished phones is a job better done with the device guide open and your own analytics next to it. There are no unbranded chargers either: a charger that cuts out halfway through a debug session costs more in lost time than it saves.

One more thing travels with most of us to meetups and conferences. Venue and hotel Wi-Fi is shared with hundreds of strangers, and developers carry signing keys, store accounts and client code on their laptops. A VPN such as NordVPN encrypts that traffic on networks you don't control. It is no substitute for two-factor authentication on your developer accounts, which matters more, but it is a sensible habit on the road, as our notes on practical conference preparation explain.

Partner stores

Three companies we link to directly. UGREEN sells its chargers and hubs from its own US store, so that link shows for readers in the US. Parallels makes the virtual machine software many of us use to run Windows-only tools on a Mac, and NordVPN is the VPN we mention for travel Wi-Fi. We earn a commission when you buy through these links as well; it never decides what goes on the shelf.

How this shelf is kept

We add something only when it solves a problem our writers keep running into. If something on this page has changed, tell us through the contact page and we will look at it within the week.

Questions

Do you test these products yourselves?

No. Where one of our writers uses something similar, the article that mentions it says so in plain words.

Do you earn money from these links?

Yes. Some links on this page are affiliate links: if you buy after clicking one, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never decides what goes on the shelf, and the shelf is short on purpose.

Which single item helps most?

For most people it is the charger and a set of cables that carry data. They end the daily hunt for a working cable and keep test phones charged without draining the laptop.