Get the fastest internet you can with good service.
High-quality laptops of course.
If your job involves a lot of videocalls, get at least a decent headset with a microphone, and maybe a professional standalone microphone too. I know people with $300+ headphones but use their laptop’s built-in mic, which feels irrational to me.
I know lots of people swear by external monitors, though I haven’t found them that helpful myself.
I know people with $300+ headphones but use their laptop’s built-in mic, which feels irrational to me.
This seems easy to explain with people caring about their experience much more than the other person’s? (Or, less cynically, it’s easy to notice and fix things that annoy you, rather than things annoying someone else)
I think this makes sense if you’re in an office environment. If you WFH and you are frequently in 1-1 internet meetings, your microphone quality should impact the quality of the call at least as much as the quality of your headphones, realistically probably more since $10 earbuds are “good enough” and the built-in mics very much aren’t.
And the call quality doesn’t just impact your partner, it makes your work and social interactions harder too! Especially for someone like me who has a pretty high opinion of the quality of my own words.
I do have an accent so maybe this is more salient to me, but I have certainly been annoyed by native speakers’ low-quality/non-existent microphones before, and I expect it to have decreased their productivity at the call at least half as much as it decreased my productivity.
Or, less cynically, it’s easy to notice and fix things that annoy you, rather than things annoying someone else
This seems more plausible to me. Another possibility is that people spend lots of money on headsets for reasons other than videocall quality, eg for listening to music or for white noise cancellation, which again seems more likely pre-pandemic and in an office setting.
Get the fastest internet you can with good service.
High-quality laptops of course.
If your job involves a lot of videocalls, get at least a decent headset with a microphone, and maybe a professional standalone microphone too. I know people with $300+ headphones but use their laptop’s built-in mic, which feels irrational to me.
I know lots of people swear by external monitors, though I haven’t found them that helpful myself.
This seems easy to explain with people caring about their experience much more than the other person’s? (Or, less cynically, it’s easy to notice and fix things that annoy you, rather than things annoying someone else)
I think this makes sense if you’re in an office environment. If you WFH and you are frequently in 1-1 internet meetings, your microphone quality should impact the quality of the call at least as much as the quality of your headphones, realistically probably more since $10 earbuds are “good enough” and the built-in mics very much aren’t.
And the call quality doesn’t just impact your partner, it makes your work and social interactions harder too! Especially for someone like me who has a pretty high opinion of the quality of my own words.
I do have an accent so maybe this is more salient to me, but I have certainly been annoyed by native speakers’ low-quality/non-existent microphones before, and I expect it to have decreased their productivity at the call at least half as much as it decreased my productivity.
This seems more plausible to me. Another possibility is that people spend lots of money on headsets for reasons other than videocall quality, eg for listening to music or for white noise cancellation, which again seems more likely pre-pandemic and in an office setting.