Mavix M9 review: "Unparalleled support at a premium"

The Mavix M9 is an ergonomic model taking on the most elite names in the pursuit of being crowned one of the best gaming chairs. With an MSRP of $999.99 / £863.99, it’s far from a cheap gaming chair, boasting a suite of features we barely ever see from the competition. With the M9 being the company’s flagship model, there’s certainly a lot to prove, but its prowess cannot be understated. 

Assembly

The Mavix M9 was actually the easiest gaming chair that I’ve ever had to put together, though by this point I’ve assembled half a dozen. I clocked the building time at just under 25 minutes, however if you’re a first-time builder you’re probably looking at closer to 35 minutes depending on your confidence level. 

What stood out to me for such a premium gaming chair is the lack of any included instructions on a physical printout or piece of cardboard. Instead, you’re greeted with a QR code that sends you a Vimeo link for the step-by-step. Everything’s pretty straightforward if you have prior building experience; the caster wheels go on first, you turn the whole thing upside down, attach the backrest to the bucket seat, and you’re away.

Said caster wheels remind me more of a high-end skateboard or scooter with their thick rubberized construction and free-wheel incredibly easily. You’re not being lumbered with tacky plastic-on-metal wheels here, and for the money, you certainly shouldn’t have to be. The same premium quality can be said of the included screws, both Hex and standard, and the tools required to assemble the Mavix M9. Everything went together quickly and painlessly.

As is typical, I recommend that you have someone nearby to help you in the assembly process, and in this case, it’s due to the actual weight of the seat portion of the chair itself. Due to the sophisticated mechanisms (which thankfully comes pre-assembled and ready to go), this is easily the heaviest chair I’ve ever put together, so having a helping hand to slot the bottom of the seat into the stand is ideal.

 Design and Features

As you may expect from a gaming chair retailing for $999.99, the Mavix M9 is nothing short of exquisite in everything from its aesthetics to what it offers compared to the competition. The brand has opted for a high-end feeling leatherette and mesh combo for that crucial balance between accommodating and cool. 

Our review unit came in an all-white colorway and, in my opinion, is easily the nicest looking gaming chair I’ve ever seen. Of course, looks are subjective, however with its clean and slimline white-on-black iconography, there’s nothing else on the market that’s quite this refined. Gone are the bulky backrests and the hemmed-in feeling of some other models made by competitors, instead the Mavix M9 keeps things entirely practical with what is visually conveyed by the chair. 

Looks aside, it’s the premium features that really make the Mavix M9 stand out from the crowd. You’ve got a wide range of ergonomic adjustments available to you. Perhaps the most crucial is the adjustable lumbar support that somewhat harkens to the Razer Iskur. Here, however, the level of adjustability can be fine-tuned to degrees that I haven’t seen any other chair do. It’s all down to the mechanism underneath, as you can lock the reclining functionality with one lever, and adjust it with another, on the left and right sides respectively. This means that you can have your back supported in place, but still have the backrest move with you as you do, though more on that later.

Our review unit came included with what Mavix calls its Elemax ‘Cooling, Heatpad, and Massage technology’. This is essentially a kind of USB-powered pillow with fans attached that you slot in the space behind the chair itself. The module is secured through a plastic grate with a few buttons and corresponding light colors depending on the chosen mode. There’s the option for two different types of massaging as well as a heating pad (that’s surprisingly warm pretty quickly) and cooling fans that breathe well through that mesh portion of the chair. While the Elemax can run just fine through its internal battery pack, things are much more full-on when plugged in via USB, which I was for the majority of my time in my testing.

 Comfort and Performance

I’ll tell you straight up that the Mavix M9 is easily the most comfortable and accommodating chair I’ve ever sat in, however, it does take some time to set up properly. Due to the level of ergonomic control on offer here, I did need to take a considerable amount of time dialling in the right settings and learning how everything worked for me before I was truly comfortable. With that said, once I found a reclining angle, backrest height, and headrest position that worked for me, that was it - I felt completely supported.

That’s something I cannot say for many gaming chairs, there always tends to be something to annoy you. The real ace in the sleeve of the Mavix M9 is that mesh lumbar portion that flexes with the curve of your spine and it genuinely feels tailor-made to me, with an almost surgical level of precision. The included headrest here isn’t pillow soft, nor rock hard, which meant I could actually keep my head back without the usual strain that builds up in my neck, making me want to actually kick back in this chair for long periods of time.

For a point of comparison, I’m six feet tall and around 175lbs, and found the max height positioning of the head and backrest to be ideal for me personally. Something that also made a difference was that you can physically slide the seat and forward and backward to accommodate for leg room, so I pushed it as far back as it would go. No recommended height limit has been listed by the brand, but I’m comfortable in saying that anyone a good few inches north or south of myself shouldn’t struggle to be accommodated by this chair. I did have people both shorter (5ft8 and 5ft10) and taller (6ft2) who found the Mavix M9 to support them just as well.

The only thing I don’t particularly care for with the Mavix M9 is the armrests. While functional, providing the expected 4D functionality of being able to tilt and swivel, they are noticeably cheaper and a little stiff compared to armrests in far more affordable chairs. They're far from the worst I’ve ever tested, though still a far cry from what they could have been, given the MSRP.

I was initially sceptical about the temperature-controlling Elemax technology, but found myself having at least one feature enabled constantly during my testing period with the chair. On warmer days, the cooling fans (maxed out and plugged in) kept me from feeling stuck to the leather material, as other chairs have done in the past. 

The same can be said for the heating functionality; while far more subtle than that of the fans going turbo, it was nice to have some warmth run down my spine. Both the heating and cooling modes can be used in tandem with the massaging feature and that’s the sweet spot for the level of comfort on display here. Is the Elemax exactly necessary? No. Does it add something substantial to the end user experience? Absolutely.

 Should you buy the Mavix M9? 

The Mavix M9 is an incredibly comfortable ergonomic gaming chair that delivers a level of support I haven’t previously experienced, but it does come with that hefty asking price. At $999.99, this is easily one of the most expensive gaming chair models on the market, outclassing even the most premium offerings by the likes of Secretlab and AndaSeat. However, the Mavix M9 isn’t really competing with the standard models. Instead, we can take aim at the Herman Miller X Logitech Embody which carries an MSRP of $1,500 - nearly a third more. 

I’m personally comfortable in recommending the Mavix M9 to anyone who wants a superior level of comfort and accommodating support at a premium price as it is substantially cheaper than the alternative. Still, a thousand dollars is quite the expense for a gaming chair, especially when factoring in that the Elemax technology adds another $150. Still, given everything that the Mavix M9 can do, and the unparalleled performance in all my time of testing and reviewing gaming chairs, there's still value in this cost for those who can afford to spring for it.

 How we tested the Mavix M9 

I used the Mavix M9 as my main gaming chair when working from home and in my downtime over a significant period of time. I tested out all of the Elemax features thoroughly and made all the adjustments I could to stress test the mechanism itself. At times when I was working, I had the Mavix M9 in a supportive, upright position to accommodate for better posture, and when consuming media or gaming, the reclining functionality was used more extensively. I made sure to switch between the likes of the Razer Iskur X and various AndaSeat models for a point of comparison as well in my final verdict.