Finally Ready to Take the Plunge: Gaming Chair Thread

BOSSIN Gaming Chair Office Computer Desk Chair with Footrest and Headrest Racing Game Ergonomic Design Large Size High-Back E-Sports Chair PU Leather Swivel Chair (Gray)

Price: $109.99
+ $29.99 shipping.
From known shit poster :p
 
Although slightly over your budget, i guarantee you will be most comfy. Perfect for working from home and it cleans itself

Colony+1.28+GPF+Elongated+Two-Piece+Toilet+%2528Seat+Not+Included%2529.jpg
 
There's a thread on this in Arcade Forum.

With it being so hot, I wish I had a mesh back chair with sturdy armrests screwed into the mesh back frame. The mesh back chairs I've seen only connect the armrests to the seat.
 
+1 on this thread. Looking for 2, in the same price range.

Theres a ton on amazon. All have mixed reviews.
 
The Bloody Nine said:
Why? Isn't it just a rebranded example of the cheap Chinese 'gamer' chairs that Gamer's Nexus did an expose on?

Click to expand...

No.

Most of the bestselling chairs you see on places like Amazon are, but not Secret Lab. They're based in Singapore, not China. The have two assembly plants in the USA: one in Tennessee that services the east coast, and one in Utah that services the west coast. These offer domestic customer service support.

Most of the cheap gaming and office chairs from China have no company foothold here, or nothing more than some closet-sized window "office" with a phone in it so they can claim an address. It's easy to tell which these are because the chairs won't even ship from that location. This is the first of your tells. The easiest way to tell the cheap chairs from the good chairs are three:
  1. Where is the headquarters (i.e. not China), and do they have a separate domestic presence for customer service and returns?
  2. What is the warranty on the chair?
  3. How much does the chair weigh? (not the weight capacity-- the weight itself)

Almost every bestseller you see on Amazon fails #1 right off the bat. This might seem unfair because it's blanketing, because a few Chinese companies are trying to be competitive at the higher end, but it's a minefield trying to pick them out from the rest unless you want to spend your day peeling through return policies and business registrations, and even then...good luck. A second minefield is that even among these more ambitious companies they often only really make an effort with a few models out of dozens. The rest-- almost their entire inventories-- are crap.

For example, NBA star Gordon Hayward has a deal with a company called "Autofull" based in Beijing which is actually owned by the supergiant Xiaomi. His chair and a few others from them offer a 2-year limited warranty, and even a lifetime warranty on the steel frames; though that doesn't mean much-- the steel is not the part that will break. Same goes for GTRacing which is based in Shanghai and their best chairs. However, for both, most of their chairs offer a pitiful 30-day warranty. Furthermore, they don't cover shipping within warranty. Finally, they use courier services to handle shipping and returns which indicates they don't have a real USA presence.

Warranty is key. I almost spit my coffee all over my computer when I saw "30-day warranty" for Amazon's bestselling office chair. Almost every chair on their top lists offers 30 days, 90 days, or if you're damn lucky, 1-year. That's unacceptable. Look for 2-years at a minimum. Secret Lab offers a limited 3-year warranty, and like a few other companies, they expand this to 5-years if you simply jump through the hoop of taking a picture of your chair after assembling it and posting it your social media with the hashtag #SecretLab. I really like this idea. Win-win. They get marketing, you get a better warranty for free.

Third, look at the weights. Most of these cheap chairs, even those boasting a higher weight capacity, range from 20-35 pounds, and there's no correlation to the quoted weight capacity. That's one of the reasons you know that the quoted weight capacity is dreamed up by the manufacturer, and doesn't mean anything. There's no standard. Given, you can make a sturdy chair with less weight if you have incredible design (ex. Herman Miller, Steelcase). However, generally speaking, the lighter chairs are chairs where the manufacturer cheaped out. I got the Secret Lab Titan XL. It weighs 79.4 lbs fully assembled: an absolute tank. Most of the best chairs weighed between 55 lbs to this 79.4 lbs (which was the heaviest I saw).

It isn't a coincidence that the companies that tend to charge more didn't just do one of the things above, but almost always got all three right, and vice versa for those garbage Chinese chairs which failed all three.

Secret Lab (Singapore), Maxnomic (USA), Noblechairs (Germany), Vertagear (England), and DXRacer (Sweden) are examples of solid companies. I also noticed Cooler Master (Taiwan) offers a gaming chair. One of the only Chinese chairs I noticed that was solid was the AKRacing Master Series Max. Five year limited warranty, 68 pound weight, and they sell through Wal-Mart which is attractive because you get the security of Wal-Mart's return policies and customer service.
 
Madmick said:
No.

Most of the bestselling chairs you see on places like Amazon are, but not Secret Lab. They're based in Singapore, not China. The have two assembly plants in the USA: one in Tennessee that services the east coast, and one in Utah that services the west coast. These offer domestic customer service support.

Most of the cheap gaming and office chairs from China have no company foothold here, or nothing more than some closet-sized window "office" with a phone in it so they can claim an address. It's easy to tell which these are because the chairs won't even ship from that location. This is the first of your tells. The easiest way to tell the cheap chairs from the good chairs are three:
  1. Where is the headquarters (i.e. not China), and do they have a separate domestic presence for customer service and returns?
  2. What is the warranty on the chair?
  3. How much does the chair weigh? (not the weight capacity-- the weight itself)

Almost every bestseller you see on Amazon fails #1 right off the bat. This might seem unfair because it's blanketing, because a few Chinese companies are trying to be competitive at the higher end, but it's a minefield trying to pick them out from the rest unless you want to spend your day peeling through return policies and business registrations, and even then...good luck. A second minefield is that even among these more ambitious companies they often only really make an effort with a few models out of dozens. The rest-- almost their entire inventories-- are crap.

For example, NBA star Gordon Hayward has a deal with a company called "Autofull" based in Beijing which is actually owned by the supergiant Xiaomi. His chair and a few others from them offer a 2-year limited warranty, and even a lifetime warranty on the steel frames; though that doesn't mean much-- the steel is not the part that will break. Same goes for GTRacing which is based in Shanghai and their best chairs. However, for both, most of their chairs offer a pitiful 30-day warranty. Furthermore, they don't cover shipping within warranty. Finally, they use courier services to handle shipping and returns which indicates they don't have a real USA presence.

Warranty is key. I almost spit my coffee all over my computer when I saw "30-day warranty" for Amazon's bestselling office chair. Almost every chair on their top lists offers 30 days, 90 days, or if you're damn lucky, 1-year. That's unacceptable. Look for 2-years at a minimum. Secret Lab offers a limited 3-year warranty, and like a few other companies, they expand this to 5-years if you simply jump through the hoop of taking a picture of your chair after assembling it and posting it your social media with the hashtag #SecretLab. I really like this idea. Win-win. They get marketing, you get a better warranty for free.

Third, look at the weights. Most of these cheap chairs, even those boasting a higher weight capacity, range from 20-35 pounds, and there's no correlation to the quoted weight capacity. That's one of the reasons you know that the quoted weight capacity is dreamed up by the manufacturer, and doesn't mean anything. There's no standard. Given, you can make a sturdy chair with less weight if you have incredible design (ex. Herman Miller, Steelcase). However, generally speaking, the lighter chairs are chairs where the manufacturer cheaped out. I got the Secret Lab Titan XL. It weighs 79.4 lbs fully assembled: an absolute tank. Most of the best chairs weighed between 55 lbs to this 79.4 lbs (which was the heaviest I saw).

It isn't a coincidence that the companies that tend to charge more didn't just do one of the things above, but almost always got all three right, and vice versa for those garbage Chinese chairs which failed all three.

Secret Lab (Singapore), Maxnomic (USA), Noblechairs (Germany), Vertagear (England), and DXRacer (Sweden) are examples of solid companies. I also noticed Cooler Master (Taiwan) offers a gaming chair. One of the only Chinese chairs I noticed that was solid was the AKRacing Master Series Max. Five year limited warranty, 68 pound weight, and they sell through Wal-Mart which is attractive because you get the security of Wal-Mart's return policies and customer service.
Click to expand...
Beast of an analysis LOL. My buddies recommended it. I took a flyer and bought one in stock so I didn’t have to wait.
 
Madmick said:
No.

Most of the bestselling chairs you see on places like Amazon are, but not Secret Lab. They're based in Singapore, not China. The have two assembly plants in the USA: one in Tennessee that services the east coast, and one in Utah that services the west coast. These offer domestic customer service support.

Most of the cheap gaming and office chairs from China have no company foothold here, or nothing more than some closet-sized window "office" with a phone in it so they can claim an address. It's easy to tell which these are because the chairs won't even ship from that location. This is the first of your tells. The easiest way to tell the cheap chairs from the good chairs are three:
  1. Where is the headquarters (i.e. not China), and do they have a separate domestic presence for customer service and returns?
  2. What is the warranty on the chair?
  3. How much does the chair weigh? (not the weight capacity-- the weight itself)

Almost every bestseller you see on Amazon fails #1 right off the bat. This might seem unfair because it's blanketing, because a few Chinese companies are trying to be competitive at the higher end, but it's a minefield trying to pick them out from the rest unless you want to spend your day peeling through return policies and business registrations, and even then...good luck. A second minefield is that even among these more ambitious companies they often only really make an effort with a few models out of dozens. The rest-- almost their entire inventories-- are crap.

For example, NBA star Gordon Hayward has a deal with a company called "Autofull" based in Beijing which is actually owned by the supergiant Xiaomi. His chair and a few others from them offer a 2-year limited warranty, and even a lifetime warranty on the steel frames; though that doesn't mean much-- the steel is not the part that will break. Same goes for GTRacing which is based in Shanghai and their best chairs. However, for both, most of their chairs offer a pitiful 30-day warranty. Furthermore, they don't cover shipping within warranty. Finally, they use courier services to handle shipping and returns which indicates they don't have a real USA presence.

Warranty is key. I almost spit my coffee all over my computer when I saw "30-day warranty" for Amazon's bestselling office chair. Almost every chair on their top lists offers 30 days, 90 days, or if you're damn lucky, 1-year. That's unacceptable. Look for 2-years at a minimum. Secret Lab offers a limited 3-year warranty, and like a few other companies, they expand this to 5-years if you simply jump through the hoop of taking a picture of your chair after assembling it and posting it your social media with the hashtag #SecretLab. I really like this idea. Win-win. They get marketing, you get a better warranty for free.

Third, look at the weights. Most of these cheap chairs, even those boasting a higher weight capacity, range from 20-35 pounds, and there's no correlation to the quoted weight capacity. That's one of the reasons you know that the quoted weight capacity is dreamed up by the manufacturer, and doesn't mean anything. There's no standard. Given, you can make a sturdy chair with less weight if you have incredible design (ex. Herman Miller, Steelcase). However, generally speaking, the lighter chairs are chairs where the manufacturer cheaped out. I got the Secret Lab Titan XL. It weighs 79.4 lbs fully assembled: an absolute tank. Most of the best chairs weighed between 55 lbs to this 79.4 lbs (which was the heaviest I saw).

It isn't a coincidence that the companies that tend to charge more didn't just do one of the things above, but almost always got all three right, and vice versa for those garbage Chinese chairs which failed all three.

Secret Lab (Singapore), Maxnomic (USA), Noblechairs (Germany), Vertagear (England), and DXRacer (Sweden) are examples of solid companies. I also noticed Cooler Master (Taiwan) offers a gaming chair. One of the only Chinese chairs I noticed that was solid was the AKRacing Master Series Max. Five year limited warranty, 68 pound weight, and they sell through Wal-Mart which is attractive because you get the security of Wal-Mart's return policies and customer service.
Click to expand...
I have a Secret Lab Titan myself, got the SoftWave cookies and cream option. Love it.

I had an issue with the left arm rest, there was a cut on the soft padding (not sure if I caused it or not) but they swapped it without issue.
 
Terry Noonan said:
Lucky I guess LOL.

anyone have a Secret Lab chair?
Click to expand...

Don't buy a gaming chair. Go buy an office chair and you'll get a much better product. Don't be afraid to go used. Call around to a local office supply store and see what they have, a lot have refurbished stuff for 1/2 price.
 
jefferz said:
Don't buy a gaming chair. Go buy an office chair and you'll get a much better product. Don't be afraid to go used. Call around to a local office supply store and see what they have, a lot have refurbished stuff for 1/2 price.
Click to expand...
I’m a big Herman Miller fan but yeah I couldn’t find one used for $400-500. Wasn’t willing to drop $650+
 
Terry Noonan said:
I’m a big Herman Miller fan but yeah I couldn’t find one used for $400-500. Wasn’t willing to drop $650+
Click to expand...

Have you tried the WorkPro series from Office Depot? They're not too bad, but wait for a sale.
 
jefferz said:
Have you tried the WorkPro series from Office Depot? They're not too bad, but wait for a sale.
Click to expand...
Haven’t but I’ll take a look. With everyone working from home we have two home offices. May be time to axe the Walmart chair I bought a few years ago. The Secret Lab will be for me and should be good.
 
Terry Noonan said:
Haven’t but I’ll take a look. With everyone working from home we have two home offices. May be time to axe the Walmart chair I bought a few years ago. The Secret Lab will be for me and should be good.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

JoeyJoeJoeJr
I tried to answer the question: Is mobile hotspot gaming viable in 2023?
Replies
16
Views
622
Madmick
Madmick

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,237,112
Messages
55,468,095
Members
174,786
Latest member
plasterby

Share this page

Back
Top