Whether you love binging your favorite series every night, or whether you only tune in a few times a week to watch your reality TV show of choice, one thing will always remain true. Everyone loves cozying up to a home entertainment setup that adds to the relaxing experience at the end of a long day.
Having the perfect setup goes a long way when it comes to livening up the atmosphere you want in around your TV, whether in the master bedroom or the living room. Adding to your home entertainment setup can be a less-is-more situation at times, but other times the best option is to invest in something that stands out.
Usually, after buying a new television, the question of whether you need an entertainment console, or a wall unit comes to mind. For those who have trouble deciding, we have put together a few pros and cons you should consider before making your decision.
Pros and Cons of a Wall Unit
Simply put, the pros and cons of a wall unit are as follows:
Pros:
- Modern wall units can be exceptional pieces of furniture. They can look beautiful and can pull the style of a room together. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, from more simplistic aesthetics to complex, innovate designs. It can most certainly become the centerpiece of your living room.
- Wall units have a lot more storage space. You can easily use the different compartments to store additional pieces of décor – if you want to pull the entire wall unit together under one theme – or use it to store electronics that should be close to your television.
- Cables will not interfere with the aesthetic. If you have a lot of electronics with cables running through your wall unit, hiding those is easier. This prevents the cables from creating a cluttered look.
Cons:
- Wall units require more space. A proper wall unit can be quite big, so it unfortunately limits your options based on how much space you have available.
- Unless your wall unit consists of modular pieces, you will have a hard time moving it around. Not only can they be cumbersome, but if you are using the storage space they provide, you will also have to remember to unpack them and clean them. You also risk more damage when moving wall units without proper help.
- Most wall units have a set amount of TV space. This means that if your current TV fits into your wall unit perfectly, you cannot get a bigger TV since you will have to replace your wall unit then at the same time. Because of this, you will often have to buy a wall unit with more space than you are currently using, just to be safe.
- It can be much harder to keep the space underneath or inside your wall unit clean. Dust will collect underneath and inside your wall unit the same as it will anywhere else in your home. The problem, however, will be getting underneath it and removing everything inside it to keep it clean.
Pros and Cons of an Entertainment Console
Here is a list of pros and cons when you are using an entertainment console:
Pros:
- Entertainment consoles take up much less space. You have a lot more choices when deciding what you want to buy because you can worry less about space. If you need more storage space, you can always buy a slightly bigger entertainment console, however, if you just need the basics, you can easily get away with something much smaller than a wall unit.
- You can easily move your entertainment console around. Since it takes up a lot less space than a wall unit, you will not have nearly as much trouble relocating the piece of furniture. Adding to it or removing from it also becomes simpler.
- You are not as restricted when it involves space for your TV. Unlike most wall units, the space you have for your TV is not limited to a certain size. Your room opens up to the possibility of wall mounting your TV or changing the size of your TV over time without having to worry about it fitting perfectly into the allocated space, as is the case with most wall units.
- You can get excellent minimalistic setups with an entertainment console. Since it takes up much less space and allows you to easily wall-mount your TV, you can create exceptional, minimalist aesthetics.
Cons:
- You don’t inherently have storage space alongside your television set. Some entertainment consoles do have additional space, but once you have placed your electronics on it is used up. Overall, the space provided by entertainment consoles – even the bigger ones – is less than that of a wall unit.
- If you have too many cables it can look messy. Unlike a wall unit, you cannot hide a mess of cables behind all entertainment consoles. Without proper cable management setups, this can ruin the look of your entertainment console overall.
- Entertainment consoles are not as sturdy as wall units. Being smaller pieces of furniture, it goes without saying that an unexpected knock or bump to it can cause a lot more damage, especially if the TV on top of it was not well-balanced to begin with.
- Your kids might be more prone to injury with an entertainment console. We all know how much toddlers love to explore or how accident-prone preschoolers can be when running around. You do not want the children in the house to possibly knock over your expensive television, or worse yet, get injured because of it. Wall units provide a lot more stable than entertainment consoles. If you know your young ones will want to run around and explore, a wall unit is probably the better bet for that added stability, hidden cables, and protection to the electronics it houses.
It is easy to see there are clear differences between a wall-mounted TV and having your TV on a stand. Both have their pros and cons, but it all comes down to what you are trying to accomplish, and whether your home is better suited to having one or the other.
