Sunmae Gaming Chair – Review

I was very excited to get the chance to review the Sunmae Gaming Chair, as my old one was pretty worn out from years of abuse. As an author and a PC gamer, I spend more hours in a computer chair than the average person.

A typical week for me looks something like this: my MMO’s put me at over twenty hours alone, add in some Overwatch, a bit of writing, and I am looking at upwards of thirty hours a week. So comfort is a HUGE asset for me when shopping for a computer chair.

ASSEMBLY:

Overall the chair was very easy to assemble. The parts are separated clearly, and included the only required tool for assembly in the package, which is a combination hex wrench and Phillips head screwdriver.

It took under forty-five minutes to assemble, including unpacking, taking photos, and generally taking my time.

A few small things to note in no particular order:

• It took a moment to find the instructions, they were inside the plastic cover on the underside of the chair seat.
• The labels for some of the parts were hard to read. The plastic layer started to pull apart from the cardboard backing, which made reading some of the part numbers difficult.
• The hex wrench would not completely rotate when tightening the screws for the plate that mounts the seat bottom to the gas spring. It was annoying the number of times I had to remove the hex wrench and put it back in. If the screwdriver portion had been just a tad shorter, it would have been much easier.
• One of the side brackets that holds the seat back was rather sharp, and I was afraid it would cut or tear the leather on the side of the seat when I was getting it in place. As none of the other brackets were sharp, I don’t think this was intended.

 

COMFORT:

The Sunmae chair comes with a lumbar pillow, and a headrest pillow. Both are fully adjustable, and attach to the chair with elastic that buckles on. While I feel like this was something that could function well, the execution was off. The pillows both easily slip and slide around, and I find myself adjusting the lumbar back to my ideal position several times an hour.

Something else to note, less than two weeks in, a stitch in the headrest is already coming apart. I have barely messed with the headrest pillow, and have been at my computer much less in this last week than usual. So with light use, I feel like this is very unacceptable for it to be falling apart this early on.

The winged seat has enough padding in it to make it comfortable enough that I didn’t have to add my own pillow or cushion to it. A nitpick complaint, unless I am sitting straight up in the chair, with my butt all the way back, the wings can tend to push into my upper thigh. It only does this towards the front of the chair, but I notice if I try to adjust myself at all in the chair, I walk away with two very sore spots in my thighs. While I am not grossly overweight, I could stand to lose some pounds. Though I did not find a weight limit from the manufacturer, I think that bigger people in height, width, and especially in weight, would not be very comfortable in this chair. If I had to put a number on it, I’d steer clear if you are pushing over two hundred pounds.

Now, on to the armrests! OH, the armrests! This is where the Sunmae chair began to lose me, and also what sets higher end gaming chairs apart in my opinion. The armrests are NOT adjustable! This is a HUGE con for me! I have had to rig up a pillow to the armrest so that my arm and wrist are level with my desk.

Con number two with the armrest is how wiggly they are! They are as tight as they can possibly be, and you can easily move them around with little to no effort. When I support myself to stand, they shake, and feel as though they could snap off at any given moment.

This chair does not roll well on carpet, which brings me to another con. The placement of the chair on the base sits back farther than normal chairs, and when you push yourself in towards your desk after sitting, the chair will begin to tip more often than not.

Yet another con, this chair DOES NOT rock back very far, even though the manufacturer states that it can “be rocked back and forth at a 15 degree angle” this is definitely not the case. As a big rocker, I love that in a computer chair. When I am thinking, or just want to relax and take a breather, I push back from my desk and rock myself back and forth. I have to force the Sunmae chair to move back, and even then it is barely moving an inch or two at most.

The chair back does relax backwards up to 135 degrees with an easy to reach handle on the bottom right side of the seat, which seems decent enough. I generally don’t use that feature on a chair, but I do know that higher end chairs can lean back much farther than this chair can.

If you’re interested in purchasing the Sunmae Gaming Chair, you can click here to find it here on Amazon.

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