I need a new PC Chair, you guys!

Good evening wonderful Giant Bombardiers and Tested.comolgists!

I find myself suddenly without a chair for my PC use. Why? Because the last three chairs I've had have been utterly rubbish, and after a year or so, broken down and fallen apart in a number of ways. That's really my own fault, because at the time I never had enough free cash to invest in a quality chair, I just needed a replacement chair right there and then.

But this time I have a little money as I was saving up for something else, but having a chair has to come first.

Thing is, I don't know anything about PC chairs. So I'm asking you folks! Such dedicated gaming and tech enthusiasts must have all sorts of posterior comfort knowledge!

I have about £170 available, and I live in the UK. I don't just want the most expensive chair I can get on that budget, I want a quality chair at as reasonable a price as is uh...reasonable.

What do I need in a chair?

• Well I need wheels, it's gotta move.
• It needs arms, or else where would my elbows sit!
• It needs to be able to be fixed, or lean back, because who doesn't like to lean back in their chair?!
• Leather. I know all these chairs are leather (right?), but leather's just plain great. Easy to clean, warms up nicely, soft, attractive, yeah. Leather's great.
• It's got to have a head-rest. I'm tired of not being able to rest my neck....ever.
• Oh, it swivels. They all swivel, right? I need to be able to twirl to face my arch-enemy, witty one liner at the ready.

The big thing of course, besides all the basics, is comfort. The chair's gotta be comfortable, it's your throne, where you'll spend hours on end, it has to be hella comfy. And while I don't know anything about it, a chair that's good for posture would be great, because my posture is pretty bad, to the extent of having a sore back pretty regularly. I should probably do something about that, eh. Can chairs that promote good posture *be* comfy? These are the things I don't know!

Thanks in advance folks :)

Oh and for reference, here are two of the terrible chairs I've been using the past few years. They've had arms fall off, pressure vessels slowly fail, wheels fall off repeatedly, split plastic, permenantly loose screws.....so almost every ailment you can imagine a chair could manifest. And I take care of my chairs! Honestly! All I do is sit on them!

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Search/searchTerms/6179131.htm

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Search/searchTerms/6172633.htm

I can't find the UK link, but this chair is highly recommended for the price. Assuming you're relatively local to an Ikea, you can skip shipping costs, too.

@Ravenlight said:

I can't find the UK link, but this chair is highly recommended for the price. Assuming you're relatively local to an Ikea, you can skip shipping costs, too.

Looking at IKEA's website makes me feel like I'm playing The Sims.

You are describing my chair perfectly and I don't know what brand it is as the sticker has fallen off the bottom. I think it's discontinued anyway. It cost me $300 Canadian plus another $75 for taxes, assembly, delivery and 15 year warranty. It's 5 years old now and is just starting to begin to get a wobbly arm rest. My advice is to go to an office furniture store and sit in every single chair until you find the one that is most comfortable and looks the most solidly built. A good office chair should be able to last decades. Forget about cost. You want the best out of this chair since you'll likely be sitting in it between 2 and 14 hours a day for a number of years.

Relevant to my interests

Oh man, I hope you find a chair and that there are great suggestions in this thread. I have been looking for a new chair for about 4 months and they are all crap.

I need something that I would want to sit in it for about 14 hours since that is about how long I sit in it a day (yay work! /wrist). One of these days I'll actually spend a weekend and actually scour the region for one. I would probably spend about $400. $500 if it really deserved it.

@TyCobb said:

Oh man, I hope you find a chair and that there are great suggestions in this thread. I have been looking for a new chair for about 4 months and they are all crap.

I need something that I would want to sit in it for about 14 hours since that is about how long I sit in it a day (yay work! /wrist). One of these days I'll actually spend a weekend and actually scour the region for one. I would probably spend about $400. $500 if it really deserved it.

The Aeron the subjectively "best" chair you can buy if you really want a chair that will last a lifetime. The price tag is definitely the main thing that's turned me off from getting one already, but if I had that much money to spend on a chair, I wouldn't hesitate to buy pick one up.

@Ravenlight: Thanks. I probably would have went for it had it been leather with some cushioning. I just hate the way those mesh chairs feel.

This is my chair, and I love it. Looks awesome, comfy, light, and durable as hell. Plus I can recycle it if I ever decide I don't want it anymore (which I don't see that ever happening). But for a true office chair, you can never go wrong with The Aeron.

@TyCobb said:

@Ravenlight: Thanks. I probably would have went for it had it been leather with some cushioning. I just hate the way those mesh chairs feel.

One of the reasons for the mesh is that it breathes better making it nicer to sit in for long periods. I actually own an Embody , with the balance fabric, which is the successor to the Aeron although both are outside of the range you had said. Out of Herman Miller chairs something like the Sayl would be in the range you mentioned. Other decent brands would be Steelcase or Humanscale although with any of these it would be best to go into a retail location to try out chairs.

@indirectx: I saw the perfect chair at Humanscale. http://www.humanscale.com/products/freedom_task_chair_headrest_configurator.cfm?group=FreedomTaskChairWithHeadrest

Customized it and it showed as $1,411. Damn, I really want it!

http://www.gamingchair.com/

@Ravenlight said:

I can't find the UK link, but this chair is highly recommended for the price. Assuming you're relatively local to an Ikea, you can skip shipping costs, too.

That chair looks pretty nice! It's £125, so well within my budget, the specs seem to give me what I want, and it's got a 10 year guarantee, so I know it will last...longer than the receipt :P I might have to take a trip down to Ikea and sit on it....there's one a nice 20 minute drive away (never been inside one, apparently it's a weird alien world in there?).

Some of the other chairs mentioned, while cool and hopefully helpful for someone else, are way out of my price range xD Maybe when I win the lottery? I totally understand the philosophy "price shouldn't matter, get the one that will be great and last the rest of your life", but for a guy in a part-time job in this economic climate, I shouldn't really be spending up to £200 on a chair at all, never mind even more than that ><. I should probably be spending this money on bills or something :P

Anyway, I'm going to take everyones advice and sit my ass on a bunch of chairs. Perhaps....ALL THE CHAIRS.

I just bought this chair and love it so far.

Coincidentally (am I living in the Truman Show?) Lifehacker wrote an article on the "five best office chairs" yesterday. They included several of the chairs you guys mentioned, as well as the one I'm gonna go look at soon cos it's a reasonable price (the Markus) and looks pretty good.

I'll let ya know what I end up with :)

http://lifehacker.com/5941523/five-best-office-chairs

you want to get a expensive one. i got one from my mothers work. it is great. it's getting dirty from me eating food and it dripping and stuff.