This gaming chair has a lumbar support belt, and a month later I'm still getting used to it

It took a little while to get used to the AutoFull G7. It's a very unique, quirky gaming seat that feels like nothing else I've sat on in my three years of reviewing the best gaming chairs. In fact, I still feel like I'm getting used to it well over a month after assembling it. Regardless of how unique it feels, it's been growing on me every week of testing.

But here's the thing, I'm not usually a huge fan of "ergonomic" mesh chairs. I understand their breathable appeal, but the ones I've tested in the past have had a higher price than fully cushioned, upholstered alternatives, and it always feels like you're paying more for less of a product. Ergonomics is the upside to these chairs, though. In other words, you're usually going to get better posture support, separate back panelling for your lower and upper back, and often more adjustability.

The AutoFull G7 is supposed to cost $799.99 / £669.99 at full price, although I've seldom seen it above a $599 discount price in the US. If it looks familiar, that's probably because it looks exactly like the Hbada E3 Pro, which you may have seen in targeted social media ads if you've even smelled the idea of getting a new chair lately. Hbada is the sister brand to AutoFull, and so the G7 packs all the same great adjustability while giving gamers a little more personality and color.

Design

I'd usually talk to you about the assembly process first, but I think with this quirky a product, we need to discuss its design before anything else. For me, this chair's design was what led me to it over the umpteen other ergonomic mesh chairs on the shelves at the moment.

The AutoFull G7 and the Hbada E3 Pro both have a clever lumbar support system, which sets them apart. I've been describing it as a lumbar roll cage to friends and co-workers, but it could also be compared to a belt, because it doesn't just support your lower back, it folds around you to cradle your sides too. In three years of reviewing gaming chairs, I've seen a few floating lumbar systems, like the Razer Iskur V2's, but I haven't come across anything that takes such a unique approach to lower back support as the G7 does.

This is, of course, fully adjustable, and you can fold and unfold the sides of the lumbar support to suit your body shape. What I think isn't clear when looking at pictures and videos of this chair is that the lumbar belt doesn't really lock into a fixed position. It's spring-loaded and takes on your weight when you sit back. On one hand, that's great, because no matter how you shift your body throughout a work day or a gaming session, you'll still benefit from lumbar support. On the other hand, it can be a real pain finding a position to rest comfortably in.

Constant pressure being applied to your lumbar so that you're constantly supported? Great. A spring-loaded mechanism digging into your back for your entire remote-working life? Not always the most comfortable.

Interestingly, there is a locking mechanism for this back support, but it only really limits the height it sits at, not the outward position. I'm not sure if this is supposed to act this way, or if it's actually meant to lock into position, and I just got a faulty unit. Either way, it makes the lumbar support an inescapable feature of the chair that you can't really shy away from. Unlike the scrollwheels used on gaming chairs like the Boulies Master Series.

As I've mentioned, AutoFull G7 is a mesh chair, meaning it has a breathable netted fabric instead of padded cushioning and either leather or fabric upholstery. There are two back panels, a neck/headrest, and a footrest. The seatbase has a more elasticated mesh, which is a lot comfier than a lot of other mesh seatbases I've tried. It's fairly narrow, though, which feels exaggerated after my months of sitting in the Corsair TC500 Luxe. I find that I can't really adjust my sitting position in this chair. I can't fold one leg under the other because my foot will take on the full pressure of the seat rim, which is extremely rigid. This is not a chair for people who like to fold their legs or who want a wider base.

Where the G7 differs from the Hbada E3 is in its backplate armour and colorways. The Hbada is an office chair, so it comes in a more muted mesh color that looks white or grey in most lights. The G7 is available in black, white, pink, and purple. Included with all of those variants is a back panel that gives it more of a Gundam, Transformer look. Fittingly, these are magnetically fixed and can be interchanged or removed entirely.

Features

Like a lot of these ergonomic office chairs, the AutoFull G7 is extremely clicky. That is to say that it has loads of parts that you can shove this way or that, sliding them into positions that work for you and the way you're sitting. While I don't really like this type of adjustability and would be much more appeased by some locking levers and switches that keep things in the position I like, I have gotten on well with the G7. Yes, I still declare war on armrests that don't stay in the position you want them in, but since there are so many layers of adjustability on this chair, it's not the worst thing in the world.

The armrests here go way beyond the call of duty. While most chairs just about meet the 4D armrest quota, AutoFull has made 720°, 6D armrests. They can move up and down, front to back, they can tilt forward and back, and they can spin around on two different axes. That's just about as conclusive as you'll get for any gaming chair armrests in this day and age, and I love being able to set them to the exact position, rotation, and width as I want for typing and gaming.

One of my favorite features from the Fractal Refine is back here, too. Adjustable seat depth is an amazing bonus if you like to slouch down a bit and really sink into your chair. That works excellently in the Fractal Refine, but in the AutoFull G7, I really haven't used it all that much because I've found that the lumbar support ends up pulling up the back of my t-shirt and generally just feeling pretty uncomfortable. Still, it is a nice feature that not enough chairs have.

Footrests are becoming more popular in office and gaming chairs, and although I wasn't a huge fan of the Secretlab Ergonomic Recliner for the Titan Evo, I'm a big fan of this one. It has something that Secretlab doesn't have, and that's the ability to slide outwards to accommodate different leg lengths. It's also included by default - no extra cost or assembly needed, and it isn't in the way when it's not in use because it folds away under the seatbase.

I wish the headrest were as intuitive. While it has lots of adjustability, it often feels really awkward to move or rest your head on. For starters, its mesh and awkwardly sized logo that's embroidered on feels like cardboard to lean back on. It can move in 4 dimensions, but I don't ever feel like I'm getting the perfect position, no matter which one I utilize. Lazily applying some pressure to it with the back of your head always tends to yield unintended results as well, and you're never quite sure of how it's actually moved around behind you.

But hey, at least if you're on the taller side of the height scale, you can adjust all three back panels of the G7 to work for you.

Assembly

With all of those moving parts, you can probably understand why the assembly process was a tad complicated. For the most part, it was the same process you'd go through to put together any gaming chair. You start with the wheels and wheelbase, then you fix the backrest to the seatbase and armrests. Except, with so many adjustable parts that click into new positions with nothing locking them into any one angle, lifting and maneuvering any of them becomes a nightmare. I would seriously recommend grabbing a partner to help with this chair's assembly, because heavy lifting when any of the adjustable parts could click a few notches down and trap a finger at a moment's notice gets real dicey, real fast.

It also doesn't help that a few times, the assembly instructions ask you to use an Allen key where there is no room for you to leverage one. For instance, attaching the armrests to the seatbase requires you to spin an Allen key into a hole that is already embedded in the innards of its steel shape. Which means you get about a third of a turn before you have to rest the Allen key and start again. Then, attaching the headrest, you have to navigate some tiny bolts at a really awkward angle where there really isn't much room for an Allen key to work. I actually lost one of the tiny bolts inside the backrest when doing this step.

There is a small screwdriver that comes with the G7, and it's a shame this isn't more widely used in the assembly process, since it might have been easier to twist than an Allen key to spin. In fact, a few extra screws in this chair would have been helpful. The armrests on my testing model feel a bit loose when you put weight on either end of them. I'm referring to the actual armrest tops here, not the long arms that hold them in place. I emailed AutoFull throughout my testing time to see if this was the result of a bad model or just how they were because of the adjustability. They told me to tighten the screws that held the armrests in place, but there aren't any for the armrests other than the ones that fix them to the seatbase.

This is a real shame, and it's not the only instance of the build quality feeling a little cheap at times for what is a pretty costly chair. The mesh material of various panels can often be heard rubbing up against one another, which gives me some worries that they'll be prone to wearing down as time goes on.

Performance

So how do all of these clicky, adjustable, lumbar-supporting features perform in long hours spent at a gaming desk? Well, I personally love how this chair has a Jekyll and Hyde personality to it.

During my first week of testing, I was in the editing stages of making a video essay for my YouTube channel, so after my normal working-from-home routine during the day, I was spending even more hours at the same desk doing all my content creation tasks in the evenings. For work, I'd be sitting in a more ergonomically agreeable position, minding my posture, and doing my best to sit up straight. In the evenings, however, you better believe the footrest was coming out, and it was time to recline. I like that this is a chair for work and play, and all the while, it feels like it's supporting your bodyi's shape.

We do need to talk about the lumbar system, though. It is easily the coolest, and best, but also most bizarre thing about this chair. Like I said toward the top of this review, I still feel like I'm getting used to it. I'll stand up after a few hours at my desk and feel the phantom sensation of the lumbar support pushing into my lower back. It feels like my spine is straighter in these moments, but I can't exactly say it's the most comfortable feeling in the world.

The lumbar belt is a double-edged sword, no doubt about it. With the spring-loaded tension, I do feel like it's doing something for my back, but if you adjust your position at all, or shuffle in the wrong way, it's going to slide upwards and outwards, and suddenly put tension on the wrong part of your back. There have been a few gaming sessions where I haven't realised this was happening, and I'd get up only to have more back pain instead of less.

This is where I'd really have liked a few more locking levers to really nail down the position that works for me. Adjustability is great, but it's good for things to stay still too, please. It doesn't help that I'm still in two minds on whether the locking mechanism for my G7's lumbar support actually works as intended.

A real saving grace of this chair is the armrests, which really benefit from all the adjustability I've talked about. Being able to move to be narrower or wider is a huge quality-of-life bonus after I spent months scowling at the wide-set armrests of the Corsair TC500 Luxe. I'd have liked some more comfortable tops for the G7's armrests, though. There is a spongy texture to them, but not enough to avoid a numb or even sore elbow at times. Thankfully, all that adjustability means you can pivot them around so that your forearms are always resting in their concave shape.

There's one area of this seat that I haven't really touched on, and that's comfort. This is different from ergonomics, which is more about supporting a healthy position for your body. Comfort when it comes to gaming chairs is more about your happiness to slump into one for long hours of gaming with minimal fuss and bother. The AutoFull G7 has great ergonomics, and its seatbase is comfortable thanks to its elasticity. But on the whole, this isn't the most comfortable seat I've tried. After a full day of work in the G7, the couch was screaming pretty loudly at me and seemed really appealing. Yes, the footrest here gives you that feeling of kicking your feet up and relaxing, but the whole package isn't as comfortable as I'd like.

Should you buy the AutoFull G7?

I think if you're looking for a highly adjustable, ergonomic, mesh chair, you'll struggle to find a better one for gaming than the AutoFull G7. The Hbada E3 Pro has seemingly become really popular due to its clever ergonomics, and I can see why. The AutoFull G7 takes that same adjustability and unique lumbar system and puts a gaming spin on them. This is absolutely a chair that will help to improve your posture, and I can see it being a big hit with folks who want to alleviate lower back pain. That said, if your pain is severe, proceed with caution; the spring-loaded tension of this chair is like those corrective leg braces Forrest Gump wears as a child. It does the trick, but it can feel pretty invasive.

Compared to a lot of ergonomic chairs like the ones made by Herman Miller, the AutoFull G7 has a reasonable price, although this is one I'd suggest waiting to pull the trigger on until it's discounted under $600. I don't think the build quality is good enough to warrant a $700+ price tag compared to other options I've sat in.

How I tested the AutoFull G7

I sat in the AutoFull G7 every day for work and play for a little over a month before this review was written. In that time, I used its many adjustability features and assessed how they were impacting my posture, body, and comfort level.

I compared my experience using this chair closely with my time in other gaming chairs, as well as other mesh offerings that cater to an ergonomic market. I was provided with a sample from AutoFull for this review, and I emailed them about the issue of the loose armrests while testing.

For more on how we test gaming chairs, take a look at the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

Looking to level up your gaming setup? Check out the best gaming monitor, the best microphones for streaming and gaming, and the best PC controller.