The best lapboard for gaming

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The best wireless lapboard

  • Wireless, light, and easy to use
  • Ideal for slower games and browsing
  • A small mouse and mousepad area
  • Flat keyboard not great for fast games

The Razer Turret is in an interesting position on this list, as it’s the only one of the three lapboards that is wireless. It’s also the smallest by a significant margin. For some, the Turret will be the only logical choice thanks to these unique advantages, while others won’t even consider it due to the flat keyboard and smaller mouse area. But one thing that’s undeniable: in distinctly Razer fashion, the Turret is the classiest option out there.

Size is not to be underestimated as a factor in these tests. Sure, you want a desktop experience on the couch, but you also don’t want a big hunk of plastic taking up space in your living room. The Lapdog and the Sova are hard to hide, and you’ll almost definitely need to dedicate a spot specifically for storing them when they aren’t in use. The turret not only folds up, it comes with a neat little stand for both the mouse and keyboard that displays them nicely while they charge. Because of this, I never had a problem with battery life for either device, which Razer says is up to 40 hours on the mouse and a whopping four months on the keyboard, and they never got in my way.

Being wireless—with the mouse and keyboard sharing a single USB dongle—means I didn’t have a thick cord running from my couch to my TV every time I wanted to play games, and I didn’t notice any wireless lag on either device. I do wish the Turret keyboard had extra USB plugs on it like the Sova or Lapdog, because USB cords for headsets, mics, or wired mice to replace the stock one rarely reached all the way to my TV. Things like wires and storage size don’t directly affect your gaming experience, but they are important factors to those who want their PC to be part of the living room, rather than take it over entirely. 

That being said, the Turret is not really what you’d think of as a “gaming” keyboard. It’s essentially the same kind of flat chiclet keyboard you’d find on a MacBook laptop, with a bit more spring to each key press. It works well and will be more than enough for those not looking to play fast-paced games on it, but it was a little bit of a problem when I tried to play Overwatch or Warframe. The flatness of the keys and the lapboard overall meant I had to twist my hand slightly to hit a certain combinations of keys, like pressing Q while keeping my fingers on WASD. It wasn’t terrible, but it was noticeably more difficult than using a full-sized keyboard.

The mouse that comes with the Turret is another bit that will work fine for some and not at all for others. It’s a nice shape, ambidextrous with two buttons on either side and a good amount of weight to it, but it’s so small that it physically hurt my hand to use. I am personally used to palming larger mice, and the Turret mouse seems to be more suited for gamers partial to using the “claw grip” with nothing but their fingertips touching it. It's a stubby mouse. But its size does pair nicely with the mousepad, and I love that it's very slightly magnetized to it so it won’t slip off.  

The mousepad area is a smoother finish than the Sova and Lapdog and is significantly smaller, measuring roughly 7.5” wide by 4.5” tall, but it provided more than enough room to use with a higher sensitivity mouse and wrist motions. If you are accustomed to a lower DPI while using the whole pad with sweeping elbow motions, this isn’t the lapboard for you, but I never found myself wanting for more mouse space, even when playing shooters. That is until I finally abandoned the included mouse and plugged in a larger one, which is when I almost ran out of vertical space without even moving it! The left and right motions were fine, but top to bottom risked the edges of the mouse going off the pad. 

So it’s tough say where the Razer Turret lands. It’s a fantastic small form factor lapboard for using a mouse and keyboard on the couch, but only if you are looking for some very specific things. I wouldn’t reach for the Turret to play FPSes or action games, but not having to fumble with wires coming out of a piece of plastic the size of a skateboard on my lap means I’d prefer it for slower games, or just generally using my PC. The Turret doesn’t provide a high-end gaming experience compared to its competitors, but it provides an ease of use and portability that they don’t come anywhere near.  

Tom Marks
Tom Marks
Tom is PC Gamer’s Associate Editor. He enjoys platformers, puzzles and puzzle-platformers. He also enjoys talking about PC games, which he now no longer does alone. Tune in every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on Twitch.tv/pcgamer to see Tom host The PC Gamer Show.