Published , by Blake Morse
Published , by Blake Morse
For the last year or so I haven’t really had much of a desk to speak of. Sure, I’ve been making due with a plastic fold-up table in the middle of my living room so I could do cool livestreaming stuff with my consoles, but nothing was ergonomic about my rig. So, when the fine folks at AndaSeat offered to send me a review unit of their Eagle 2 Gaming Desk I saw it as an opportunity to see how the other half had been living. And after spending some time in front of this compact and stylish setup I gotta say that it seems like the other half has been doing pretty good.
The AndaSeat Eagle 2 Gaming Desk arrived at my apartment in a notably compact box for a desk that’s 55 inches long and 23 inches wide. Since I live alone I had to sort of roll the box up a few flights of stairs, but I’d recommend getting a friend to help you lift this puppy, especially since you’re going to want them to stick around and assist with its assembly.
Honestly, the worst thing about the Eagle 2 is how much of a pain it was for me to put together by myself. I’ve made many a piece of Ikea furniture and I’ve assembled more office chairs than I care to remember and I’ve never once had to retrace and redo things as much as I had to with this desk. Sure, you could say I wasn’t paying attention, but I swear that’s not the case. Okay, maybe human error had a little bit to do with it, but in all my years of putting pieces of furniture together I’ve never had such a frustrating experience.
The instructions just were not as detailed as they needed to be and as a result I found myself having to screw and unscrew parts of the desk several times. It was extremely tough to do all by myself. I really wished I had asked a friend to come over and help, so I’m gonna really encourage you to do so as you’re gonna have a rough time trying to get the bar that holds up the table part onto both legs.
The balance issues I was having while putting it all together were only compacted by the odd design choice to have spots on the balance bar that holds the top of the desk where I had to put a screw into an hole that was on the inside of the hollow metal bar. For some reason AndaSeat thought that the plastic circle on the end facing outwards towards me didn’t need to go all the way to the groove I had to put the screw in. This meant that just about any time that screw slipped I had to fish it out of the hollow metal bar. It was worse than losing a pick in an acoustic guitar and added way too much extra time to assembly. It’s probably the most glaring design flaw in the whole thing.
While the AndaSeat Eagle 2 Gaming Desk was a pain to put together, I can’t really complain about the results. Once fully assembled the Eagle 2 has several features that I really appreciate. For starters, it has holes on both sides for feeding cables and plugs into a nest at the back of the desk to help keep that cluster of wires that all PC rigs seem to need to be able to function properly. My life feels like a knotted mess of cables, so I appreciate at least being able to hide them from the world.
I also really love having a cup holder, like basically anywhere, any time, and for any reason, so having one built into the desk definitely scores some brownie points with me. I’m also always looking for a place to keep my headphones so the fact that the Eagle 2 has a hook built into the left underside is a real luxury for me and frees up desk space for all the other junk I like to keep around me while I work.
The Eagle 2 also comes with a mouse pad cover that claims to be skid-proof and wear resistant. For what it’s worth I’ve been using the desk for a little less than a month now and the pad has been doing a dang good job of handling everything I’ve thrown at it. I take a lot of lunch breaks and have my morning coffee at my desk a lot of times and so far any spills, crumbs, or what have you have been a breeze to clean up. The only thing I would say is that the pad just kind of flops onto the top of the desk and had several wrinkles when I initially put everything together. I think having magnets in the corner of the pad and desk top would serve it better in the long run.
While the AndaSeat Eagle 2 Gaming Desk may have been a huge pain in the butt to put together by myself, I can’t argue with the results. The Eagle 2 has a lot of nice little features that I really appreciate in a gaming/work desk that adds a few quality of life features I’m not accustomed to. While a cup holder, headphone hook, and feeds for cables seem like no big deal they actually add a decent amount of value for me. The desk itself feels sturdy and has been doing a great job of keeping my work/livestreaming rig right where it needs to be. It’s also just the right size for my tiny apartment’s living room. If you do pick one up, just make sure you call a friend to help you put it all together.
This review is based off a product sample provided by AndaSeat. The AndaSeat Eagle 2 Gaming Desk is available now for an MSRP of $399.99 USD