Gesture Office Chair, Licorice

This is a review for the Steelcase Gesture Office Chair with Head Rest. In summary this is the highest quality, most comfortable office chair I have ever used. Delivery: This chair was delivered by Amazon, INSIDE my house. I was curious why Amazon included the inside delivery until I actually got the package. Because of the high quality of this chair the package weight was about 70 pounds and would have been a challenge for me to drag inside if it had been a normal delivery. Assembly: The chair came mostly assembled so final assembly of the three parts (wheelbase, rod, and chair) was done in seconds with no tools required. I had also purchased a set of Rollerblade office chair wheels from The Office Oasis (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED UPGRADE), so it took me maybe a full minute. I assembled the chair myself, but because the chair is HEAVY, I would recommend having a friend help. Adjustment: This is where this chair really stands out. This chair has so many adjustment options I did spend some time getting the fit just right for me. The controls are intuitive and soon I had the chair adjusted to perfection. The lumbar support fits me ok at the lowest setting, so shorter people might not be as comfortable or need a cushion to fit comfortably. I’m 5’8”. I was a little concerned about the fully adjustable armrests, but they don’t flop around when using them for support to stand or sit. Value for the Money: Initially I was shopping for another economy chair. I’m 67 years old, retired, and I am a gamer so I spend up to 18 hours a day at my computer (with regular breaks for exercise). I needed a new chair because the full 1.0 version of a computer game I have spent almost 6,000 hours playing is finally being released next week (Satisfactory!!!) That means for the next few weeks I will practically be living at the computer. I have a house full of “31-day chairs” mostly purchased via Amazon. I spent a few hundred dollars each on 9 different office/computer gaming chairs that barely managed to function well long enough to pass the 30-day Amazon return date. I had spent almost $3,000 on horrible chairs that didn’t last. With that in mind, the price on this quality chair seems reasonable I hope I never have to find out how well Steelcase stands behind their warranty, but at least on paper this product has a solid multi-year warranty. Something my discount office chairs were lacking I highly recommend the Steelcase Gesture Office Chair with Head Rest to anyone who spends a lot of time in their office chair and values quality, comfort, and durability. I will never buy another one of those discount “31-day chairs”.

TLDR: As the title says, this chair is uncomfortable, way over priced, and poorly designed. It boggles my mind how this can be recommended so much. The only reason I didn't return after about a week was I threw out the box. So here is more detail as to why..... - Seat padding and comfort- This seat has NOWHERE near enough padding on it. I weigh about 215 lbs and it feels like this seat would only work for someone about 50 lbs lighter. Even then I think over time your butt would still start to hurt after a while. - Seat support- Between the size and shape of the seat along with the back and forward adjustment, I do not feel like I'm getting enough support. It feels like the seat is leaning forward a bit and not supporting me properly. Combine that with the material that the seat is made with (I have the cloth version) and it feels like I'm always on the edge of sliding out of the chair. Even moving the seat all the way forward did not help. And I'm 5 foot 10, not some giant. - The arms adjustment- The arms swing horizontally and there is a) very little resistance to their movement, b) they move to ridiculous extremes you would never realistically use for anyone with close to normal body size, and c) there is no way to lock them in position. The result is that you are CONSTANTLY moving these things around to be supportive. It's horrible. - The armrests- They are horrible. The have similar issue with the arms, they rotate horizontally with no way to lock them in place. They have "clicked" positions but it takes so little force to rotate them that the feature is useless. The edges are hard, so if you don't have the armrests in the right position then you get poked by the hard edge. The shape is wrong too! The top is rounded off, so that point along with material they use for them, your arms feel like they are constantly sliding off. - Value and Quality- This does not feel like a $1600 chair. The headrest is crazy adjustable ( again something else that moves to positions that no normal human being would use) and it feels like they spent a bunch of money on the engineering of that and now charge you 3X what they should for the whole chair. No part of this chair feels premium. It's largely plastic. You sit in it and you jostle it around a bit to the point where with all the plastic I imagine this will start to creek over time. I certainly won't use or have it long enough to find out.

This is NOT an "easy chair". However, if you want to sit with improved posture this chair will do it for you. Infinite adjustments give you a near "customized" sitting experience. I'm 73 with lifetime low back problems and finding a chair that I can sit in relatively comfortably has been a lifetime quest. Looks like I've finally found what I've been searching for. I do not use the chair in our home office but use it as my primary "roosting spot" for TV viewing and general seating. If you give it a chance (it does take some getting used to) this thing will give you all the support you're gonna need. I find that if I get up and move around a little every couple hours that any "pressure" points are diminished and I'm set for another couple hours. (My MD tells me that this is good for my circulation) All around I have found this chair to be a great addition. And who the heck warranties anything for 12 years?! A little pricey but a good investment if you're looking to improve your sitting experience. BTW there is NO assembly, comes in the box completely set up and ready to go! Cool.

I was really impressed with this chair initially. I have bad back problems but my back felt pretty good after sitting in this chair for long periods of time. I loved how adjustable this chair is and how supportive it was for each area of my body. It is clearly made with extremely high build quality (which is also why the chair is insanely heavy) and was much better than any other office chair I've sat in. The headrest and armrests on this chair are easily the best I've experienced in an office chair. But the chair isn't perfect. Probably the biggest problem for me was how thin the seat cushion was, especially in the back/tailbone region. My tailbone would get painfully soar while sitting in it and I couldn't take sitting in the chair for more than a couple of hours without getting up and taking an extended break from sitting in the chair. When you sit on that pad you pretty much just bottom out on it and it feels like your sitting on a hard surface. The backrest is very flexible, which is intended and meant to allow the backrest to move with you in the chair. The problem is, it is too flexible. When I recline back in the chair and rest my head on the headrest, the added force from my head and shoulders cause the backrest to arch back, along with my back. I have a bulging disk in the thoracic region, and when I recline back in this chair and my back arches badly with it, it causes me nerve pain. The backrest does have multiple recline positions and you can adjust how far you lean back, so I was able to mitigate this issue to some extent with that. I used this chair for 2 weeks and I did slowly get used to it and it back a bit more comfortable as time went on, but I wouldn't say it was at any point actually comfortable. I wanted to like this chair, I really did. But the tailbone soreness along with the high price tag made it really hard to justify keeping. I'm happy to spend $1600 on a chair that is comfortable to sit in without back pain, but that's too much for a chair that is ultimately too uncomfortable to sit in all day while I work. Steelcase, if you read this, please make the seat pad thicker on this chair, especially towards the back, and make the back just a little less flexible, particularly in the lumbar area. I know you want to design a chair with the best ergonomics possible, but making huge sacrifices in comfort for marginal improvements in ergonomics is not worth it. What good is ergonomics if I can't sit comfortably in the chair?

I've been in excruciating pain for a few months, never having been able to find a comfortable sitting position since WFH started full time in March 2020. I've switched out my chairs, installed height adjustment gadgets to the monitors, tried ergonomic pillows, doing stretches & weights throughout the day when taking calls not requiring me to speak. My upper arms started to experience sharp pain, also my hands & fingers feeling tingling, numb, etc. as well as losing hand/grip strength over time. It even continued into a 3 week vacation where I spent all my time away from any work desk. This chair was my last ditch effort out of desperation right before Christmas (especially seeing it seemed to be an easy return process if I didn't like the chair). My husband thought I was wasting a huge amount of $$ on yet another ergonomic solution. To be fair, my home office now has several chairs after all this ordeal. Let's just say I instantly felt relief the first day of use. I was ecstatic to be finally not be in constant pain! Then the next couple of days, some of the pain came back, but not nearly as much. I realized part of it was my learning the chair functions and how to adjust it to my sitting positions throughout the day. After a month of use, I am not in constant pain, and I seem to be slowly gaining strength back in my hands. No more sharp pains in my upper arms which is amazing! Pros: - The chair can be raised very high, I've not had one going this high which is perfect for my desk. - The chair leans very far back. This is awesome as I am the type of person to sit in different positions throughout the day including leaning very far back (nearly horizontal) away from the desk. - The arm rest is highly adjustable. I can raise them high for good arm support if I wanted to. I can also fold them in lower if I want to sit very close to the table (this is my biggest gripe with all office chairs where I can't sit as close to the desk due to the chair arms not going low enough to get under the desk). The arms also fold out far away where I can sit up with my legs crossed on the chair without bumping into the arm rests. - Headrest is highly adjustable in varying angles. - The bottom cushion can be adjusted, so it extends farther out. This is perfect for someone like me who likes to lean back low. In a typical chair, my butt would be halfway on the edge of the seat. Cons: (I'm being very picky with these to be fair) - The cushions could have a bit more padding. They feel a bit thin after sitting in it for days on end, but I probably shouldn't also be working 12+ hour days regularly. - My back muscle feels a bit sore after leaning back on the chair on a regular basis as it takes a bit of force to recline it back far as often as I do everyday. Maybe more padding would help here, too. - The chair at first feels like you are sliding out of it due to the angle of the bottom cushion. Once I got my chair adjusted, this has not been a problem one bit. - The material is a bit of lint/cat hair magnet. I wish I could have chosen a different color so it wouldn't show as much, but black was the only option from Amazon directly (there were other sellers with more color options, but their return policy was not as generous, hence I went with this one as it's directly from Amazon Fulfillment with Amazon's amazing return policy). I have 2 cats, their hair most definitely sticks very easily. Not a deal breaker whatsoever, but it's just a little annoying. Overall, I'm happy to have taken a chance at this pricy chair. Sitting in front of my desk no longer feels like sitting in a torture chamber.