The 11 things in this part, in one list

Here's the whole inventory before I explain any of it, because I know some of you came here for the names and nothing else.

Now the part that takes longer.

My desk, and why it mattered more than I expected

My desk is plain and it cost less than the headset sitting on it, and for about a year I treated it as the least interesting thing in the room.

That was the wrong call, and it's the thing I've changed my mind about most since I started.

What the desk decides is space, and space shapes everything below. Compact desks run roughly 32 to 47 inches wide and mine sits at the small end of that, so almost every choice here is a choice about what fits.

It's why I use a light bar instead of a lamp. It's why the headphones live on a stand instead of on the surface. And it's why there are about five small objects on this desk instead of fifteen, which took me an embarrassing amount of restraint to arrive at.

If you're working with the same problem, the 12 things that actually matter covers the same ground as categories and buying order instead of as a room.

Pink gaming setup lighting, the two sources I run

Lighting is most of why a pink desk looks good in a photo, and honestly it's most of why it feels good to sit at too.

I have two sources. That's it.

Quntis Pink Monitor Light Bar

A monitor light bar is a slim LED bar that clips to the top of a monitor and lights the desk in front of it without shining onto the screen.

Mine is the Quntis Pink Monitor Light Bar, and it's the piece of gear people ask me about more than everything else combined.

Here's what nobody says out loud: the bar is pink, the light is white. I genuinely thought I was buying pink light... I was buying a pink object that makes very good white light. Somehow I'm happier with that than I would have been with the other thing!

That Ra95 figure is the one that matters more than it sounds like it should. Colour rendering measures how truthfully a light shows colour on a scale where 100 is perfect, and it's the reason my pinks photograph as the shades I actually bought rather than as a slightly orange impression of them.

I keep it at the warm end in the evening and somewhere in the middle during the day. There's a whole page on picking one for a small desk if you want the measuring part.

Hexagon LED light panels

Hexagon LED light panels are flat, connectable panels that stick to a wall and can be set to any colour. Mine sit above the desk and they're the only coloured light in the room.

I run them low. Almost always low.

That's the single thing I'd most want to pass on to anyone setting up their first set, because softer looks cozier both in the room and on camera. At full brightness a room starts looking a bit like a nail salon :)

One warning before you stick anything to a wall: there's a limit on how many panels a single power adapter will drive, and on Govee's Glide Hexa panels that limit is 12. Ordering 20 and discovering that afterwards, with the adhesive already up, is a specific kind of sad.

My older cozy gaming lighting guide is where I worked out the layering these two are doing, and it goes deeper on the room lamp side of things.

What lives on the desk surface

Five things sit on the desk itself, and two of them exist mainly to keep other things off it.

VCOM RGB Gaming Headphones Stand

The VCOM RGB Gaming Headphones Stand gives the biggest object on my desk somewhere to live, which is why a desk with exactly the same amount of stuff on it suddenly looks tidier. It holds the headset plus two controllers and has two USB ports in the base.

Being honest about those ports: they charge at 5V and 1A and that's the whole story. No data, no fast charging. It also has to stay plugged in to light up, so it's not something you move around. I'd still buy it again, because the controllers having a home is worth more to me than the RGB ever was.

Razer BlackShark V2 X in Quartz Pink

The Razer BlackShark V2 X comes in a colourway Razer calls Quartz Pink, which is a soft dusty rose rather than a bright one. That's exactly why it sits next to everything else here without arguing with any of it. It weighs 8.5 oz, has 50 mm drivers and memory foam cushions.

It's wired, on a 3.5 mm cable. There's no wireless version in this colour at all. I made peace with that fast, because at 8.5 oz I stop noticing it's on my head after a few minutes and I'd rather have that than one more thing to charge overnight.

Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 in Blossom Pink

The Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 in Blossom Pink lives on the shelf and it's the reason there are photos taped above my monitor. It prints 3.4 by 2.1 inch pictures, roughly the size of a credit card. Each one develops in about 90 seconds.

Two things I wish somebody had told me. Film isn't in the box and it comes in packs of 10. And the flash fires on every single shot with no way to switch it off.

That second one is a real limitation and also, weirdly, half of why I love it. The prints come out slightly soft and slightly bright and a bit dreamy... which is exactly the point. If you want sharp photographs this is the wrong camera and you'll be a bit cross about it.

The phone holder

My phone used to live face down between the keyboard and my drink. Now it sits in a foldable magnetic phone holder with a suction base, which folds flat when I'm not using it.

The one thing to check with any magnetic holder: the magnet needs MagSafe or a metal ring plate on the phone itself. A plain plastic case won't hold it. None of the listings mention this and it's why most of the unhappy reviews exist.

SENSYNE 72 inch phone tripod

Every photo on this site is taken with a phone on the SENSYNE 72 inch phone tripod. It extends to 72 inches, weighs 14.4 oz, holds up to 6.6 lb and comes with a little wireless shutter remote.

Two notes from experience. 72 inches is the fully extended selfie-stick height rather than a stable working height for a camera, so I shoot my desk from about halfway up. And the remote pairs as a Bluetooth keyboard, which looks completely broken and isn't, so don't panic when a mystery keyboard turns up in your phone settings the way I did!

Getting the cables tidy underneath all of this was its own weekend project and there's a piece on doing it without drilling coming soon. My weekend post covers the quick version.

What I actually play on

Three things, and two of them only look right because of a sticker.

Xbox Wireless Controller in Deep Pink

The Xbox Wireless Controller in Deep Pink has been in Microsoft's standing line since 3 May 2022 and it's the pink I have. Vivid pink face, black accents, white back, so it reads considerably brighter than everything else in the room.

That contrast is deliberate now... it was completely accidental at first.

It takes 2 AA batteries rather than a rechargeable pack and they last up to 40 hours. There's no USB-C cable in the box either, which surprises a lot of people.

The skins on my Xbox Series S and my PS5 controller

A console skin is a vinyl wrap that sticks to the outside of a console or a controller and changes its colour without changing a thing about how it works. My Xbox Series S has one and so does my PS5 controller, and together they're the cheapest items on this entire page.

If you're ordering one, read the listing title twice. Xbox Series S and Series X skins are different products with nearly identical titles, and PS5 Disc, Digital and Slim are three separate shapes again. There's a piece coming on whether skins damage what's underneath, because that's the question that stops most people ordering.

ANBERNIC RG405V

A handheld retro console is a portable device that runs games from older systems through emulation, and the ANBERNIC RG405V is mine. ANBERNIC's own page carries the full spec sheet if you want it. It has a 4 inch touchscreen at 640 by 480 in a 4:3 shape, 4 GB of RAM, a 5500 mAh battery and it runs Android 12.

The 4:3 screen is the entire point and it took me a while to understand why. Almost everything made before about 2005 was designed for a squarish screen, so on a widescreen handheld you get black bars down both sides. On this one the games just fill the screen the way they were meant to.

It isn't pink, because ANBERNIC has never made a pink one. It's also much bigger than you're expecting, so the pocket is very much off the table! A whole piece on what these are and who they're for is coming.

How to match different shades of pink in a gaming setup

There are at least six different pinks in this room and they work together because of one rule: one bright pink, everything else soft.

Here's what each one actually is.

The Deep Pink controller is the loud one and everything else lives in the dusty and blush range. If two things in this room were both shouting, the whole desk would read as a costume instead of a room.

There's a longer piece coming where I put my pinks side by side and show which combinations actually work, because it's the question I get asked most and nobody has really written it down.

What I'd change about my setup

The thing I regret is the wall. Everything above the desk went up on adhesive, and I already know roughly what that wall is going to look like the day any of it comes down. I rent, so drilling was never really on the table... which means I picked the sticky problem over the holes problem, and I'd probably pick it again. I'd just have liked somebody to say it out loud first.

The thing I want to swap is some of the lighting. I'd trade a couple of the light sources for fake decorative vines. Softer, no cable to hide. They also beat a wall panel at eye level.

The thing I regret buying is a galaxy projector. It's beautiful for about four minutes and I never turn it on. If you're weighing one up, that's my honest data point and I'd rather you had it than not.

And the thing that turned out to matter more than I expected is the desk itself, which is the exact opposite of what I assumed when I started.

Where to start if you want a pink gaming setup

If you take one thing away from this page, take the light. My monitor light bar changed how this corner looks at night more than anything else in the room, and it handed me back the piece of desk my old lamp used to stand on.

After that it's the rule rather than any object. One bright pink, everything else soft. It costs nothing to follow and it's the whole difference between a room and a costume ♡

And the layer people underrate is the cheapest one. The skins cost almost nothing and they're the reason two of my consoles look like they belong in here at all.

And this is only part 1. There are things in this room that didn't make it into these 11, and there'll be more by the time I write the next one, so part 2 is already half written in my head :)

Pink gaming setup FAQ, the questions I get asked most