AndaSeat Kaiser 3 Gaming Chair Review — The Absolute Best Chair of 2022

I review a lot of seats, but I’d not heard of AndaSeat before. They’ve been around since 2007 and have made a lot of seats, but for luxury cars. They partnered up with the Macau Grand Prix, as well as the Macau National Football Team, National Volleyball League, Football Clubs, Racing Clubs, and now world-wide Esport Teams, but they just weren’t on my radar for some reason. When I got the opportunity to check out one of their newest flagship chairs, the AndaSeat Kaiser 3, I thought I’d give them a go and see what makes them different, if anything. Imagine my surprise when I found the most comfortable seat I’ve ever purchased or reviewed, from a company I’d never heard of before. Let’s unbox this thing and find out why this might just be the best seat on the market.

Before we get into what makes this chair special, let’s talk about the ways it is the same. Everyone is using PVC leather, and so is this chair. Underneath is a rolled memory foam, just like most other chairs in this category. The chair uses a class-4 gas piston for raising and lowering its height. It reclines, sports ergonomic options, comes with pillows, and has a metal frame. Absolutely nothing new under the sun, right? Well, not so fast.

The first thing you’ll notice about the leather is that it is downright plush. It’s PVC leather, but clearly it’s a premium version of it. Designated “DuraXtra Leatherette”, this material is precisely the type of material you’d expect out of something in a high end car (the Acura uses a similar blend) or luxury furniture. PVC Leather is made via an extrusion process, rather than being beaten cow hide, meaning it comes out uniform, can have other strengthening materials added to the mixture, and is ultimately extruded to form. Colors can be added, as well as texturing and patterns like we see on AndaSeat’s various tie-in products – I particularly like their G1 Transformers chairs. On the Kaiser 3, we have a smooth but textured main body and back, with the side wing materials looking not unlike the carbon fiber you’d find on a supercar, giving it an aggressive and elegant look. Double stitched on every seam, with heavy reinforcement at roll points, it’s also built to last.

The foam underneath the PVC also gets the royal treatment. “60kg/m³ Re-dense Moulde Foam” might not mean anything to you, but ultimately it translates to some thick foam where it matters, making the chaira pleasure to sit in for long periods of time. Generously padded side wings, and a seat that is the sort of thickness you’d expect from a “XXL” version of this chair are just standard on the Kaiser 3, but it’s what you’ll find next that makes a world of difference.

A lot of chair manufacturers, most of them in fact, will supply you with a small lumbar pillow complete with straps. These do well enough, but not everyone has pressure points in their spine in the same spots. To that end, the Kaiser 3 has two lumbar adjustments courtesy of a knob on both sides of the seat. This can help support your upper or lower back independently, and it won’t move, unlike a pillow. Better still, it allows you to be very prescriptive about how much support you want and where. This is a silver bullet for this chair, and a function I’ve not seen on nearly any other chair to date.

The last thing on the “it’s the same” list is the frame and recline options. Here’s where I’ve pointed out that you need to match the chair to the person, and not just buy the biggest chair by default. The frame, while reinforced and sturdy, is rated for 260lbs for the standard model, and rated for a person at a max height of 6’2”. That should fit most people, but be mindful of this when you select the size. The reason for the restriction is actually not the frame, but the stability when reclining. You can tilt the chair back 160 degrees, but unlike some other chairs I’ve reviewed, you can feel safe at that maximum value. Personally I don’t like sitting like that, but you could. More realistically, you’ll be able to tilt the chair as much as you’d like, and you can do so knowing it’s not going to flip over and break your neck.

Now that we’ve gotten past what makes this chair the same as others, let’s talk about the things that make it not only different, but better.

It’s a crazy thing to start with, but the packing is the best I’ve seen. Sure, there are no little white gloves in the box, but more importantly, the chair is carefully packed and padded. What you ordered is going to arrive undamaged, no matter how much hate the shippers put on the box. When you get it out of the box, you are going to find the next big differentiator almost immediately.

Assembling this chair is a breeze. Everything can be slotted together by one person, and you’ll find a unique safety feature awaiting you when you go to attach the back to the seat. A small red screw prevents the control arm from accidentally closing on your fingers. You’ll only remove this when you are sure everything is secure and safe. It’s a minor thing, but it shows that AndaSeat has really thought about the experience from the moment you open the box all the way through using it.

The next thing you’ll notice is that all of the parts are part metal and part plastic. I don’t own a single other chair that has metal buttons, smoothly rotating metal mechanisms, or metal plates to raise and lower the arm rests, but I do now. The 4D armrests feature buttons to rotate them in and out. The plate to raise and lower them is metal and locks into position with a satisfying latch. Sliding the arm rest closer or further away from your body is also accomplished with a small metal button on the side. Everywhere that you might actuate is an area where a chair can get wear and tear, but not here – these parts are going to outlive us all.

Speaking of the arm rests, it’s the first stop on the magnetized list. The armrests can be removed from the top and are held on with four very strong magnets. This allows you to clean them easily (after all, it’s where your forearms will rest and potentially sweat), making sure they stay hygienic. While these seem to be injection molded rubber material, they are at least on par with the rest of the chairs I have. The other reason these are magnetized, however, is that it makes the chair modular. You can swap in a water bottle holder, a dry-erase board, a phone holder, and more.

Talking about pillows again, naturally the Kaiser 3 comes with a headrest. I was surprised that I didn’t see any straps or plastic buckles on it. No, this head rest is magnetized. Locking onto the top of the chair, this pillow stays in place perfectly, but can be removed for easy cleaning. It’s here that I ran into my first issue with this otherwise wonderful chair.

Unzipping the pillow you’ll find a layer of blue cooling gel to keep your head cool and comfortable. Under that lies the same foam as the rest of the chair, with four strong magnets at the rear to hold it in place. The pillow case is a soft and plush cloth that I unfortunately couldn’t zip up again. No matter how hard I tried, the zipper had come apart and would not go back together. My wife tried as well to no avail. It was time to learn about the warranty on the AndaSeat.

Talking with a customer service agent, they were eager to resolve the issue. Within a week, I had a brand new pillow in my hands and ready to go. Thankfully, I was able to unzip and re-zip it meaning I was back in business. I’m not sure if what I previously had was a defective zipper, or if this is an area where AndaSeat should talk with whatever subcontractors made that pillow, but the speed at which they resolved the problem was impressive. To that point, the AndaSeat Kaiser 3 carries a 2 year warranty, but if you jump over to their warranty page and submit a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube post, you’ll extend that out to a whopping 6 years. That’s a full year longer than anyone else on the market. I appreciate it when a company stands behind their product, and clearly AndaSeat is willing to do exactly that.

Everything below the seat is fairly standard. The tilt mechanism is the high-end type we’ve seen on other premium chairs, as is the star. The wheels are the same ones that I routinely remove and replace due to them picking up chunks of carpet over time. No surprises here, so I don’t have much to say there. AndaSeat does offer a wheel upgrade to a rubberized version of the same wheel, but my recommendation continues to be these single-wheel replacements – they are on over a dozen of my chairs and they haven’t steered me wrong yet. Enjoy that pun.

The last question to answer is price. The AndaSeat Kaiser 3 is competitively priced at $529 MSRP, but it’s already on sale for the month of September for $449 at the official site.

I’m going to do something I’ve never done before – I’m declaring the AndaSeat Kaiser 3 the best chair on the market for 2022. Honestly, I’d say it’s the best chair on the market for several years prior as well – it’s just that good. I have an embarrassment of various chairs in my possession and frankly none of them come close.

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