Recently the GT Racing gaming chair company reached out to GameCritics with an offer of a chair for review, and as I was in the market for a new one, it seemed like a great opportunity to cover something a little outside of our usual game reviews.
Disclosure: the “GT Racing Ace Series ACE-PRO“ chair featured here (MSRP $249.99) was provided to GameCritics free of charge for purpose of review.
Upon arrival, the chair was easy to assemble. It had a little bit of ‘IKEA instruction syndrome‘ going on, but nothing terrible, and I had the whole thing figured out and put together in a little under 20 minutes. Easy and basically painless.
Once the chair was assembled and I had the first proper sit-down, it was a little disappointing to find that it was quite firm with very little padding. The armrests are especially tough, and I found that I tried to avoid putting my arms on them because their firm surface was uncomfortable for long periods.
The chair comes with two pillows that are not attached to the unit itself, one for the neck and one for the lower back. The neck pillow that has a strap to secure it around the top of the chair, but there are only a few positions it can be in, with very little modification. Fortunately, it was able to be in a place that worked for me, and it did help keep my head in a comfortable position.
The lower back pillow is of a good size and shape, and I did try to utilize it when I was sitting in the chair, but it has no strap nor any fastening at all. So, as is common for chairs of this kind, every time I would reach over for a drink or for my headphones, the pillow would slightly dislodge, requiring adjustment. Some type of Velcro fastener or similar solution would be ideal — it would be great to be able to place both pillows where I wanted them and then to have them stay exactly there.
Side note, I’d say that both of the pillows are required. I removed both and sat in the chair to see what it was like, and it was quite uncomfortable. Without those additions, the contours of the chair in its base state are not good.
On the underside, the ACE-PRO as two levers, one for height and one for tilt. The height lever functions as a normal office chair does — get out of the chair while pulling the lever and the chair raises up, sit in the chair and pull the lever and the chair goes down. All good.
The other lever triggers the backrest. It certainly works, but almost too well. When pulling the lever, it feels as though the back drops out like a trapdoor and you go straight into freefall if you’re not ready to hold yourself up — there’s no easing back controlled by the chair itself.
The website advertises this chair as one that is suitable for sleeping (to recover after an all-night online session?) so the back reclines and has a footrest underneath the seat that extends, but this was never feasible or comfortable. I am by no means a tall person, but I never used the footrest while sitting in the chair, as my feet felt more comfortable resting on the ground. When the chair was in the sleeping position, the foot rest at full extension only came out to the middle of my calves (at best) so it was awkward and felt a bit precarious for napping.
I appreciate that reclining is an option and maybe it would be better for people even shorter than I am (like, for kids, perhaps?) but I didn’t find either of these features to be useful or practical.
In terms of material, I think the chair looks sharp. The coverings feel as though they are of a high quality, and they seem to be fairly stain-resistant.
This chair also has two Bluetooth speakers embedded into the rear of the chair back so you can hook game audio or music, getting sound not only get it from the screen that you’re facing, but from behind you as well. It’s a neat feature although it did feel a bit strange that the speakers were pointing backwards and not forwards towards my head, but there was no difficulty with the volume. I thought they worked well, and although I did not use them very much, they are a nice and pleasantly surprising addition, for sure.
I realize everyone’s preferences are different, but I’ve tried several gaming chairs so far and most of them feel as though they fall on the ‘too-firm’ side for me personally. Maybe I like chairs softer than the average person, but this felt too much like being at the office and not enough like I was comfortable at home. When both pillows are in a good position it would support someone well, but the armrests did feel a bit too tough to lean on for long. That said, the speakers are a nice feature and the materials, overall, do feel high quality.
The ACE-PRO its certainly better than some I’ve tried, but due to the general lack of padding and reliance on the pillows to be comfortable, it’s tough to imagine it as my preferred chair for gaming sessions.
For more information on GT Racing chairs, please visit their website.
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