For me this is a pretty epoch-making event — the kind that would land on my career timeline if I had one.
If I told myself a year ago that I'd mainly be using a desktop PC, I'd be pretty shocked.
That's how little I'd ever used a desktop. I'd even thought desktops were inconvenient and hard to use — and that the only people who used them were people who weren't good with PCs and just wanted a big screen somehow.
The trigger was watching If you're bad with machines and buying a PC, just watch this! from the YouTube channel "Yuru Computer Science Radio."
The gist: for the same price, a desktop is way better value — so just buy a desktop, especially a gaming PC with strong performance even if you don't game.
In fact, even after buying a fairly decent laptop, processing had been getting slow more often. I kept using it half-heartedly because it was portable, but I'd hit the limit.
For an easy picture: open Zoom, open Figma, open a ton of Chrome tabs, pretend not to notice how heavy it gets, mutter "oops, maybe I'll reboot," and tinker around. I woke up and decided I was done with that nonsense.
I'd been treating desktops like the enemy, but thinking it through, putting up with that petty stress was the weird part. So I steeled myself and decided to get used to a desktop.
And it arrived yesterday. Back in junior high or so, the only desktop we'd had at home was some Fujitsu or whatever, used for light lookups and putting songs into iTunes.
Of course the specs weren't great then, and there wasn't anything that amazing available in that era either, so processing was just slow.
At my first company I briefly used a desktop, but the specs were so awful I begged them to buy me a laptop instead.
So I went ahead and bought a gaming PC (I don't game) and I'm moved.
I'm still not used to the mouse or keyboard; while writing this I'm making typos left and right, and somehow I keep hitting weird keys and Copilot launches.
Like rehab, my body doesn't move the way my brain wants, which is stressful. But the positive effect of the processing power outweighs that.
By the way, I used to be a Lenovo ThinkPad enthusiast.
In college, when I needed a PC for a long internship, I asked a friend who knew PCs, and that friend loved ThinkPads and recommended one.
From then on I stuck with Lenovo notebooks. I used a Mac for a while too, but it never sat right, so I went back to Lenovo and replaced it about once every two years.
ThinkPad users will get this: once you're used to that unique typing feel and trackpad, you stop wanting other notebooks — let alone a desktop.
I also disliked mice and monitors, but my eyes and neck were getting tired, so switching to a desktop is probably the best long-term move.
And that video wasn't only "desktops are powerful" — it also said: stop fussing over portability, make your home the best work environment, and keep creating content at home. That punchline hit me hard and was the final push.
By job type I do design and coding and production work, but I'm not sure if I'm a "creator." Temperament-wise, though, writing this blog for nobody in particular for so long is creator-ish enough — and honestly it's fun, so I decided to hole up and make content.
That's the diary of how I went desktop.
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