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I've been reviewing gaming chairs for long enough to see various design trends come and go. Mesh chairs with vastly inflated prices arrived a little while back, for example. Floating backrests have been poking their heads in the door, and reclining footrests are another example of an innovative feature one brand goes for, then the rest of the market immediately follows.
None of them have enraged me like the latest mainstay trend though, because it's an undeniable step backward for any gaming chair, and yet it's showing up all over the place. I am of course talking about freely rotating armrests that have no locking mechanism to keep them in a desired position. Don't get me wrong, being able to adjust the best gaming chairs to the position and shape you want to sit in is one of the reasons they're worth investing in, but they also need to stay in the position you want them in. Allow me to explain.
A lot of gaming chairs stand out against office chair rivals because of their 4D armrests. These are armrests that can be adjusted on four different axes. Usually, they can slide forward and back, side to side, they can rotate, and you can adjust their heights. When you first sit in a gaming chair with these high-end armrests, you may have a brief moment of confusion as you work out how you adjust them in each direction. Until recently, there are almost always buttons, levers, or small catching mechanisms that release each dimension. That might sound tricky to grasp, but for how often I actually adjust my armrests, it's never really bothered me.
What more recent models have been doing is removing the rotating catch on armrests so that all you need to do to twist them around is apply some light pressure in either direction.
To be frank, this sucks. It means that, depending on how you're sitting, or what part of the armrests you put weight on, they can pivot away from you, making you feel and look extremely silly. At best, this is a minor inconvenience that you'll encounter maybe once every few days, but at worst, it drives you insane because every time you go to stand up and use the armrests to push yourself upward, the armrests spin out and leave you seconds away from a slapstick comedy stunt.
I first noticed this on the Fractal Refine, which, despite its annoying armrests, currently holds our top spot for best overall gaming chair right now. Luckily, its armrests are pretty great otherwise. They have a fantastic shape and size to them, they're wide enough that your forearms have plenty of room to slide around when you're doing big mouse flicks, and they feel nice and cushioned for your elbows. The freely rotating armrests are a minor flaw in this instance, then, but I didn't realize that I was going to start seeing them popping up from other brands.
Putting my slightly exaggerated ranting to one side for a moment, I do actually worry that these types of rotating armrests could cause some folks a nasty injury. Standing up is bad enough, but what about the people who use gaming chair armrests to carefully lower themselves down into a chair? If all your weight is relying on armrest stability, and they then spin out, it's a recipe for disaster.
The Corsair TX500 Luxe and the new Razer Iskur V2 X are two more recent examples of gaming chairs that have this feature, and I cannot understand who's deciding it's a great thing to have. I get that mobile gaming is a constantly overlooked market, and the emergence of so many handheld gaming PCs means people need more rotation in their armrests, but would it be so much to ask for a button to press when you actually want them to move?
I'm pretty particular about my chair positioning. I like knowing that whenever I sit down, my backrest, lumbar support, and armrests are in the position I've set them up to be in, and another problem with unlocked rotation is that my armrests are constantly in the wrong place which leaves me feeling uncomfortable and even a little stressed out. That's probably my just-right OCD talking, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets annoyed by it.
The Secretlab Titan Evo Nanogen Edition is not my favorite gaming chair, but at least that brand gets armrest adjustments right. It has buttons and catches for all of its dimensions, and once you've adjusted them once, it's pretty easy to remember which button does what. Then again, Secretlab's armrests aren't perfect either - they click into set positions rather than freely moving and locking in where you want them.
Boulies may be on the firmer end of the scale with its armrest cushioning, but if you grab the Boulies Elite Series or the more expensive Boulies Master Series, you'll get buttons and catching mechanisms to keep them in the positions you want. I don't know about you, but it seems like a basic requirement to me.
If this seems like a trivial thing for me to write over 800 words about, I don't blame you for thinking so. But armrests are a very underestimated part of a gaming chair, especially if you use one to sit at a desk and play on a gaming PC. They can actually have a huge impact on your ergonomic sitting position - one of the cornerstones around which gaming chairs are designed. Have them too far apart and you create a slouch. Position them too high and you'll give yourself back tension. Make them too narrow or too firm, and you'll inhibit your mouse aim or give yourself sore elbows.
Gaming chairs are expensive, and sometimes needlessly so. I hope this isn't a trend that sticks around, because if I was paying the often silly prices of these gaming chairs, I'd be livid that such basic design flaws were making their way into a finished product.
Looking for other gaming hardware? Check out the best pink gaming chairs, the best console gaming chairs, and the best gaming desks.
