2020 made the home office king. Lockdown forced most 9 to 5 corporate folk to find a nook in their home to set up a laptop and get down to business. Many, myself included, even made a home office a permanent fixture in their home and have made it a haven for productivity.
But you don’t just have to do your computing in the office- or your gaming. Sometimes, you want to be a lot less formal and a lot more comfortable. This is where the lap desk comes in – for days when gaming, typing and streaming should be happening from under your cozy blanket on the couch with your pet purring nearby.
This is what Nerdytec is looking to perfect – the cozy couch PC gaming experience. Sure, it’s a niche, but more people than ever are gaming, and many of them are doing it on powerful gaming laptops. There are a lot of lap desks out there, but it’s surprisingly hard to find something comfortable, easy to use and spacious enough for using a mouse, let alone putting down a drink or plugging in peripherals like a headset. And, as anyone who’s spent any time on the couch with a laptop knows, it can get pretty hot. The Couchmaster line ambitiously tries to tackle each of these problems to create the cushiest, most ergonomic and tech-forward lap desk experience out there?
But does it live up to the hype? We took the Couchmaster Cybot for a spin to see how we’d feel after a few work sessions.
To start with, the Couchmaster Cybot is BIG. I was honestly shocked when the box arrived at our door. This is mostly due to the giant digi-camo cushions that form the base of the desk. Then there’s an extra long lap desk surface with a built-in vent to the left and a tablet holder to the upper right. There are also pouches on the sides and front that allow you to store other items you might need or tuck up your mouse cable. Higher end models feature cable management systems underneath and even USB ports for plugging in those aforementioned peripherals.
There’s no assembly required, as nothing actually attaches to anything else (save for the mouse pocket pouch). You simply set the cushions up on either side of you on the couch and place the lap desk on top. The cushions can only be so far apart to accommodate the desktop, and are a fixed height and length. For our couch, even if they’re pushed all the way back, some cushion hangs off and everything slants downward. Other problems arise based on body type, with everything from height to girth threatening the ability to actually use it in a functional manner, let alone comfortably. I was able to get myself tucked into its confines, but the ergonomic, comfortable computing I was promised is close to nonexistent. I think it’d help if the cushions were about 1 to 2 inches taller, but even this wouldn’t completely resolve the issues.
As for the desktop, it’s incredibly solid, and the vent well thought out, though I do find the placement on the far left in this model problematic, as I had to either keep my laptop further left than optimal or forego some of the vent space. There’s ample room for a mousepad though, and were the desktop able to lay flat on my particular couch, even room for a drink. I also enjoyed the handy pockets and pouches, though I wish the tablet stand section was a little wider so it could also accommodate a mobile phone.
Another issue I personally had with the Couchmaster Cybot was mobility. While once seated, everything grips well and seems to stay put thanks to the weight and textures, when it’s time to get up to get a drink or stretch, it’s cumbersome to get out of your cozy gaming setup without dumping your expensive electronics. Sure, you can set the massive board aside, but you have to have a space nearby that’ll hold the leviathan of a desktop. I can’t fault it entirely for this though, as one of the main things I did enjoy about this particular lap desk was all that real estate.
Overall, the Couchmaster Cybot gets some things really right – it’s the biggest and best built actual desk space I’ve encountered in all my “work on the couch” trials. The cushions are also well built and all materials are sustainable, according to the company. However, the parts are greater than the whole, and once set up, anything from hip width to arm length can make it a no go, with couch design another potential limiting factor. I wish it worked a little better with my couch and my physicality, but it just doesn’t, and for that reason I’m still on the hunt for something that’ll really bring home that cozy couch PC gaming/work from home experience I’ve been looking for.
If you're interested in the Couchmaster series of lap desks, including a new one in the lineup called the Cyboss that addresses several of our issues with the Cybot, click here to visit the nerdytec website.