£65 Gaming Chair from Argos
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Chairs are very much underrated when you think about them. You use them every day without thinking about the design of them, the comfort they offer and the overall usability. You have chairs for the sitting room, chairs for dining, office chairs and gaming chairs. They come in all shapes, forms and above all prices.
Well as is the norm for We Try Anything, we don’t currently review products supplied to us free by companies, unless otherwise stated, and we actually pay our hard-earned cash to go out and buy a product that we are after and actually use it. We then bring the review to you on both our YouTube Channel and here, in written form, on the website.
Today we are looking at a chair sold by Argos who is a very popular high street and online retailer in the UK. The reason for the purchase is simple, the office chair that we were using was old, the height couldn’t be adjusted as the gas lift had gone a long time ago and it was giving us back pain, which isn’t a good thing if we are using it up to 8 hours per working day.
The brief for the chair was simple. It’s got to be reasonably priced (up to £70), of good quality, comfortable, good for your back and get good reviews from real customers who purchased the actual chair we were looking at. We tried a few places like Ikea, Office Supplies and other retailers before we opted for Argos. Amazon and eBay were other great options but if there was an issue we wanted to be able to take it back to the store to receive either a refund or replacement.
After all the searching and looking around, trying out a few chairs (that were way out of price range) and reading reviews online we plumped for the £65 gaming chair via the Argos website. The chair we went for was available in a few colour variations that ranged from the likes of white with hints of black, black with hints of grey, black with hints of red, grey (which looked like it had been teleported from the ’70s) and finally the colour we purchased which was black with hints of blue.
The reviews for the chair that we had gone for were very favourable, to say the least, with a fair amount of them mentioning the quality of it, how easy it was to assemble and how comfortable it was to sit on for an extended period of time – so for us, it was a no brainer.
Purchasing it from Argos was a doddle. We reserved it using the iPhone app and picked it up in a store where we knew that we could park close by, as we weren’t sure how big the box was or how heavy and cumbersome it was to carry. We needn’t of worried though as the box that the chair was contained within was super easy to carry, not too big as it easily fitted into the boot of our Mk5 VW Golf and it only weighed a little over 12kg. You can see how big the box is via our YouTube video above or by CLICKING HERE to watch it directly on our YouTube channel.
Unboxing and Assembly
The unboxing process was as easy an experience as opening a brown box and pulling the various components out. Each of the parts of the chair come in their own polyurethane bag to protect the faux leather material. You also get a series of nuts and bolts that are packaged and marked out with letters to each of the separate elements, which was a great touch when it came to assembling as the instructions refer to the specific nuts and bolts with their letter reference making it easier to use the right nut and bolt for the right part of the assembly process.
Assembling the chair wasn’t too bad and we built it with one person which may have taken us a little longer than with two people but we didn’t have too much of a problem.
The only points of note are with attaching the underneath of the chair to the back of the chair and the arms. With the back and base fitting, we made sure that the bolts were in but not tightened too much which allowed the part where the back slots in to be lifted high enough to allow this to be easily inserted and tightened down. The arms were a little difficult as well but with a bit of perseverance, we managed to get them attached in the end.
While the tools that were packaged with the chair were ok the Allen key did start to round/wear away at the end which became a problem when we were trying to attach and tighten the arms of the chair as we kept on twisting the Allen key but it wasn’t turning the hex headed bolt. We ended up using a bicycle multitool that we had knocking around to fully tighten the arms so if you do come across that problem then you may need to get yourself one.
The Argos Gaming Chair
Once built we were impressed with how the chair felt in its made up state. The faux leather had no rips or tears when it had come out of the packaging and when built it really did look every bit the part, with the predominant black colour with hints of vivid blue to break the look up a little.
The padding felt good and firm to the touch plus there were no dips or random grooves that may have developed when it was being packaged in the box.
It was sturdy and felt solid as well plus as the castors were brand new it simply glided along the wooden floor where it stood. The gas lift worked beautifully and the chair spun around as smoothly as you would expect with something so new. Talking of the gas lift if you were wondering it will take the seat height from 460mm to a dizzying 575mm high which worked well for our desk setup. The arms connected to the chair were sturdy and didn’t rattle or move about plus they both have a bit of padded faux leather running most of the length of each arm making it very comfortable to rest both arms, as and when the need arose.
Sitting on the chair is a comfortable experience and compared to the old outgoing one (which one of the kids now have) is night and day in the way it feels with its daily firm padded cushioning. Back support is fairly well catered for, but it isn’t adjustable which for some it may become an annoyance but for us, it helped with the ongoing back pain that was occurring at the time. It’s like a form of non-adjustable lumbar support that you would feel in a car but on a cheaper level.
Adjustments are easily carried out via one lever. This allows the user to change the seating height so it is more comfortable for your body height and desk setup.
After two months of daily use, what do we think?
It’s been ok so far. The chair hasn’t shown any signs of wear or tear, especially in the faux leather fabrics that have been used to cover the foam padding. It still feels solid and none of the screws or fixings have come undone to make it feel like it’s coming apart any time soon.
The gas lift still works well and the castors still glide nicely over the wooden floor on which this chair stands on. All of which we expect for a chair that has only been used for two months so far.
Over the two months, we haven’t experienced any further back pain that we did develop using the older chair, which got passed on to our children to jump on when they are gaming. The back support is still there and when sitting backwards it seems fine. It also has quite a nice tilting feature to it where you can tilt the chair back a little, but for some unknown reason, it was quite intermittent in its operation and did surprise you when you were used to it not tilting for it to suddenly tilt backwards.
The only gripe we had is with the overall comfort when sat on the chair for an extended amount of time. It feels like the padding on the seating area of the chair needed to be just that little bit thicker so you didn’t feel the hard wooden seat base come through, which made it a little uncomfortable to sit on for a few hours or more.
This developing uncomfortable feeling may be down to the way we are sitting as when you read the reviews on the Argos website a lot of them do say that it is a comfortable chair to use, so we are not sure on that but it did slightly sour our experience of using this chair for any extended daily length of time.
The only thought we did have for this uncomfortable feeling may be down to the length of the seating area as it only seems to extend out to three-quarters of the top of our legs and didn’t support up to the knees, as you would get with an office chair. So you found that you were sitting more back into the chair to feel any kind of support in this area thus putting more pressure on the areas of your body than you would do if the seating pad was a little longer, but that is just a thought.
Our Verdict about the Gaming Chair from Argos
Get your Gaming Chair From Amazon
Overall this chair does make true the saying “You get what you pay for” and in the world of chairs with this being a cheap gaming variant we would agree. If you were looking for a chair that you would sit at day in day out while working in a normal office environment or home office we would say that it might be worth you spending a little more time and money and get a chair that is a little more substantial then this one. Though saying that we feel that this chair would be more ideally used by children and younger people alike, who are gaming in their bedrooms as it has some very nice styling, offers fairly good back support and is simply height adjustable to be suitable for their ergonomic needs.
To summarise it’s ok, can be a little uncomfortable to sit on for a long period of time and would probably be more suited to younger gamers which we are sure that this chair is probably more aimed at.
