One of the best things to come out of gaming culture is the normalization of ‘gaming chairs.’ You know the types: bucket seat rolling chairs with tall as hell backrests and probably some futuristic buzzwords. What was once reserved for Call of Duty livestreamers has become a tremendously more commonplace item for any daily-desk-user.
Related
With the rise of that commonplace came a rise in competition. The number of brands available that make comfortable gaming chairs has skyrocketed over the years. Now our cup runneth over with options. And the exact reason I love that is because it means brands like AndaSeat get a chance to shine. Big brands get overly confident, inflating prices or dropping quality, leaving room for some underdog chair manufacturer to enter the spotlight.
I was sent an “AndaSeat Novis Series Best Budget Ergonomic Gaming Chair” to spend some time with. It’s the Large option (their smallest size for some reason) and came with the Linen fabric upholstery. No memory foam pillows or other such accessories were provided.
A Swivel Chair That Turns Heads
The Novis gives a great first impression. The neutral color choices and race car shapes let it blend that line of gamer and office executive nicely. The material feels nice, and it stays comfortable all day. With a $200 price tag (remarkably lower than a lot of other similar products), it almost seemed too good. My previous gamer chair cost almost twice as much, and it has metal bars, broken foam, and even had its mechanism replaced once. What’s the catch here?
Well, it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, right? Especially when it comes to budget premium ergonomic office furniture. So I’ve opened my heart again, spending a few weeks using the Novis. It was my go-to seat for full days at work, long voice calls with friends, and several extended-hour gaming sessions because “I can’t go to bed yet. I NEED to stay up playing Minecraft until 3 AM. If I don’t, how will I know if this chair really holds up?”
You’ll Want To Be Sitting For This Next Part
Out of everything, my favorite part of this chair is — get this — the seat. It makes sense they’d prioritize that part, I suppose. It’s a thick, almost plush foam material with just the right amount of give. It provides both a sense of softness and firmness. They promote the material as “60kg/m³ cold-cure foam.” I don’t know what that means, really, but it’s clearly a point of pride for the company, and I can absolutely feel why.
But the really clever part is the bucket shaping. Like most gamer chairs, the AndaSeat Novis has upper curves on the sides of the seat. This provides a sense of “hug” to the legs. Other gaming chairs I’ve owned have used a hard material to act as the bones to these sides, a point I’ve grown to dislike over time. If I wanted to sit in my chair weirdly, they’d press against my legs uncomfortably. With the Novis, however, it’s completely free of hard bits, So I can sit cross-legged, sideways, do some lazy chair yoga, you name it; it’s all comfortably supported. The chair managing that freedom of comfort while retaining the bucket shaping is fantastic.
Some Upholstery Rubs Me The Wrong Way
Among the two upholstery options, I opted for the linen fabric. PVC Leather, while animal friendly, is a lot worse for the environment due to its production process, non-biodegradability, and tendency to flake with age. It also doesn’t breathe as nicely as fabric, which is important in my warmer-than-average office. Sure, the linen might sag after a couple of years, but at least it won’t crumble to dark flaky bits that would get all over my clothes.
I have a separate gripe with companies using the term “premium” to describe a material when that doesn’t mean a thing.
The Novis, Like Me, Struggles With Accepting Change
My biggest criticism of the chair would have to be the adjustability level. Your average gaming/office chair normally comes with a plethora of knobs and handles under the seat to adjust things like tilt, height, arm position. The Novis, however, has two options, three if you count the armrests.
The Novis has the expected height setting and a handbrake-style lever for how far back the backrest goes. There’s one other option for overall tilt, but with no way to lock those levels in, it just acts as a rocking function.
The armrests aren’t much better. Some fancier chairs will have multiple adjustment options, like how close they are, the height, and even if they’re rotated in or not. With the Novis, the only option is height. You can adjust how far in they are when installing, but changing that required manually loosening the three installation bolts.
I actually think the best office chair is one without armrests to get in the way. That makes it easier to hop in and out of, and I’m free to sit in whatever pretzel-legged poses I like without them getting in the way. As such, I just removed them entirely, eliminating this concern.
While I would have liked to see more freedom with these adjustments, I’m not terribly bothered in the end. This way is probably better for my posture anyway.
Now that I’ve had time to really sit on my feelings, I think this is my new favorite chair. What flaws the AndaSeat Novis has are minor and hardly important to long-term comfort. Its strengths, however, hit real strong. It replaced my daily desk chair, and I’ve been glaring back at my old gaming chair spitefully. I would definitely recommend the Novis to anyone looking at upgrading from standard chair fare.
AndaSeat provided a chair for the purpose of this review.
Next
Innocn 5K2K Ultrawide Curved Gaming Monitor Review: Bigger Is Better
This behemoth of a monitor has changed how I use my gaming PC.