I don't know how people can use those tiny little keyboards. When I press a letter, something like 4 buttons get pressed and it just picks one of those. Then I'm just doing more backspaces than letters.

And then there just isn't much screen real estate.

I use my phone as a computer when I must, for podcasts, and some puzzle games.  Otherwise I use my computer as a computer. 

 Id prefer desktop when I’m at my desk but I haven’t found any client that I like or works. Coracle seems to have the best web experience and primal is somewhat ok but it has bugs that haven’t been fixed in ages - seems like the team doesn’t care about web as much as they do about mobile - which kind of makes sense. 

All other clients have a host of issues that makes them difficult to use or nowhere near as nice as mobile 

 Gossip worked extremely well on the desktop. 
I haven't been able to find another native desktop client that came anywhere near it. Its only problem is the lack of zaps.

You say 'nostr' barely works on desktop - did you try Gossip?
I'm open to suggestions for other desktop clients. 

 Nostrudel has been my go to on desktop 

 Me too occasionally, but its still not a native desktop app.  

 It's not? Look I'm pretty ignorant to all this so learning as I go  

 I might have missed a native desktop nostrudel i guess, but i doubt it. Correct me if i'm wrong please.
If it uses your browser, its not native.
These clients seem to be designed for phones and use the browser infrastructure, then they get slightly changed for the desktop. As a result they are slow, clunky, usually rather buggy and are huge resource hogs. 

 I don't have the knowledge or understanding on this to be able to speak to it. That's why I thought it was a desktop. Are you saying that to be a desktop it is system based and not browser based?