Where should I put my PC?

Moving house is one of the most bittersweet events in human life. Stressful and sublime, exhausting and exhilarating, you’re given a world of new possibilities as you discover that your old furniture won’t fit quite how you imagined, you’d completely fantasised about how big the space under the stairs was, and that cute and “quirky” old passageway means you’ll be cutely and “quirkily” parking your sofa in the hallway. Having recently moved house, I’ve got a new dilemma, and it’s a vital, terrifying and life-altering decision: where does my PC go?

It’s not that our new home doesn’t have the space. If anything the problem is that there’s too much space, but the space isn’t where I want the space to be. In our previous home the PC lived in mine and my partner’s bedroom, a place where it could regularly be a nuisance thanks to the wonderfully loud mechanical keyboard, my inability to whisper with a headset on and its penchant of painting rainbow RGB colours on the walls at 2AM. So… it’s not going back in there.

The first suggested space was the kitchen diner. We love this room. It’s light, bright, and probably the place where visitors will come and spend the most time. This was actually where my wife wanted it to go, but if there’s one thing I can think of wanting less on display, it’s my gaming PC. I know I revel in all the silly lights, but I don’t actually want people to know that about me – except you, of course.

There’s also another problem. Having now raised a child that is capable of almost looking after themselves, I discovered that they’d capably claimed the PC desk for their own room during the move. This is allegedly for homework, but seems to mostly be for putting his feet on while playing EA Sports FC. So now there’s no desk to put my PC on, even if I was sure where it was going.

This was when I settled on a new idea: what if it went in the living room?

Now, the living room is not where PCs are meant to live. It’s where home consoles sit happily below or alongside your home TV, where you play on your sofa. Or, maybe it’s where your Google Stadia lived and you can’t bring yourself to go back in there yet. Either way, a mouse doesn’t play nice with a sofa, and the whole thing sounded very silly to me until I really started to think about it.

Until recent years, one of the first things that would have been an immediate downside compared to your traditional gaming PC would have been monitor latency. My PC monitor is capable of 144hz, which is lovely and zippy and smooth, but most older TV screens would only have been capable of 60hz. Now, in a world of OLED and LG’s excellent C1, the living room TV can hit a respectable 120hz, with a touted 1ms response time. I’m not too fussed about my K/D ratio in, well, anything, but even if I was, this is more than fast enough for the vast majority of human beings.

So, the screen is fine, but what about the keyboard and mouse? There’s a few possibilities here, so I’ll run you through the options. First, do you play games that require a keyboard and mouse? If not, you can easily get away with something like Logitech’s K400 wireless keyboard and trackpad and then combine it with whatever controller you fancy. Simple. Done. But, so many PC experiences are simply better with K&M and most people will need something a bit bigger.

That’s where a lapboard comes in. At the moment the only traditional manufacturer that really seems interested in lapboards is Corsair, with their K63 Lapboard providing a perfect spot to attach a keyboard nestled alongside a built-in mousepad. There’s also the possibility of finding a Roccat Sova lapboard, but after the Turtle Beach takeover they seem to only be available in the US, and they’re distinctly not cheap.

There’s also the Razer Turret, a keyboard with a fold-out mousepad which was designed for the Xbox One, but it doesn’t have any of the comfort options of the other two. I had a look at the Couchmaster options too and while they look super comfortable, they’re also super huge and if I can’t find space for my PC elsewhere, I’m not sure where that’s going to live. In the end, I opted for a second-hand Sova – always check CEX – to fulfil the need.

Squinting would be the next worry; not just because of my steadily aging eyesight, but also because the Windows’ UI is designed to be looked at from a foot away and not a couple meters. Once again, things have changed in the last year, with Valve making life better for PC gamers who want to take their hobby into the living room. Steam’s Big Picture mode recently got an update that puts it in line with the Steam Deck handheld UI, and it’s a huge improvement, bringing the whole thing kicking and screaming into the modern age. From here, selecting your game is as straightforward as it is on PS5, Xbox Series X or Nintendo Switch, and it looks the part too.

Shifting the PC into the living room wouldn’t be an option if I was using it for actual work. I can’t quite imagine sitting down to type out an article on the TV, creating a presentation or doing a bunch of research, but as I’ve got other places to do that it’s not a problem for me. If you’re thinking of doing the same you’ll need to work out just what it is you use your PC for. Just games? There’s fewer reasons than ever to keep it out of the main living space. Actually doing work? Probably not.

So I’m all set to embark on my new PC gaming life, and it has a newfound excitement it didn’t have before. Of course, now the big question will be, do I still need an Xbox? There’s probably another article in that.

Written by
TSA's Reviews Editor - a hoarder of headsets who regularly argues that the Sega Saturn was the best console ever released.