My home office - the chair

Last week, I wrote about the sturdy SmartDesk 2. This week, I review the comfortable new chair I'm sitting on while typing this. Oh, spoiler alert, the chair is living up to it's expectations.

Disclaimer: I've bought all my gear myself with my own, hard earned, money. So no sponsorship here! Which is why I can give you the good and the bad.

The two ErgoChair 2 chairs were next to arrive, about one and a half month after ordering them. Before, I had a very comfortable Markus chair from Ikea (not the exact model as I bought mine about 8 years ago). It was a very comfortable chair, but I have to say that the ErgoChair 2 is an upgrade all around.

It started when I assembled the ErgoChair. The instructions are very clear and a lot of thought has gone into the assembly process. In a little over half an hour, I was done with one chair. The star of the show is the superb tool that is supplied. It makes tightening the bolts a breeze. No need to awkwardly grip the little metal tool that is normally supplied, with this tool the bolts are tightened in a flash.

During assembly, I did make a silly mistake: I put the arm rests on backwards on the first chair. Luckily I saw my mistake as I put the cushion (with the armrests) down. Besides my little derp moment, assembly went as smooth as it could have.

Now that I've used the chair for the past 2 months, I can say it's very pleasant to sit on. Almost everything can be adjusted. From the height of the chair, the headrest and the incline of the back, to the tilt of the cushion and back tilt tension. I'm not sure what that last one does, but it's impressive. They even have a very good instruction video on what you can adjust and how to do it, because I didn't even mention all the settings you can tinker with.

There is one minor point: the armrests. Like the rest of the chair, it's very customisable. I can adjust the height and move the armrest itself horizontally in all directions. Here is my biggest annoyance so far: the armrests just slide around. Most adjustments such as moving the armrest or the headrest up and own, happen in stages. I can feel the clicks and stands as I move them. Not so when horizontally positioning the armrests. This is most distracting when I move my arm from my keyboard to my mouse or the other way. Then the armrest can change positions without intending to do it.

The top of the armrest is made of a soft kind of plastic which is nice to the touch, but some fabric or fake leather with a cushion would have been more comfortable. Especially when sitting in the chair for hours during a workday. I think it's strange they did not use the same material of the cushion to make the armrest more comfortable.

Don't get me wrong, the armrest is still comfortable and I love the chair. There's a lot of thought put into this to make it as comfortable as possible. If the good folks at Autonomous add some cushion to the armrest, they'll have the perfect chair.

Up next week: the monitor arm, again from the good folks over at Autonomous.