EWin Calling Series Ergonomic Computer Gaming Office Chair Review
PC gaming chairs manufacturer EWinRacing was willing to send us one of their sleek-looking chairs in exchange for a review: the EWin Calling Series Ergonomic Computer Gaming Office Chair. From the pictures online, it’s a swank-looking chair that ordinarily costs hundreds of dollars.
Twitch stars, office drones, digital artists both professional and otherwise, they all have one thing in common: their jobs require sitting down a lot, and to support this task, they need a good chair. Thus we have the growing industry of PC gaming chairs, designed especially for this kind of market.
The chair arrived at our doorstep a week later in a massive and heavy cardboard box. If you decide to order one of these, you can be assured of one thing…you won’t have to worry about porch pirates because the sheer heft required to lift this box would tire any amateur criminal out before they got three steps off your lawn. I’m not sure how much it weighs exactly, but a stamp on the side warned that it was over fifty pounds.
Now for the part I’d been dreading… assembling the chair myself. I am a writer, not a mechanic. In fact I have anti-skills when it comes to things like this, and I was certain I would make a misshapen, malfunctioning excuse for a chair no matter how simple the instructions were. I was reminded of one of my favorite Gilmore Girls conversations:
Lorelai: “I can’t stir the soup, I’ll ruin it.”
Luke: “You can’t ruin it.”
Lorelai: “Yes I can! I have powers.”
Luke: “You can’t ruin it.”
Lorelai: “One afternoon I was watching the Barefoot Contessa making a souffle and it fell! She looked out the TV and said ‘Gilmore, was that you?'”
I was able to put the EWin Gaming Chair together in about an hour. You will probably be able to accomplish it in less time, but the mere fact that I did it means you have no excuse for failing at it. Especially with these instructions. This is a full scan… see if you can tell what the problem is.
Look closer. You probably missed all those arrows. They indicate that the instructions are meant to be read counter-intuitively from left-to-right, then from right-to-left, and alternating in such fashion throughout. I did several things completely out of order due to this.
That’s my first assembly tip. My second is even more invaluable: when you get to Step 5, screw the pins in only halfway as you put each of them in. There is a VERY tiny margin for error here, and positioning the backrest at the EXACT POSITION where ALL FOUR tiny holes are visible through the steel took me half the aforementioned hour. I made the mistake of screwing the first two pins in tight. Don’t do this.
But when all was said and done, there it stood. Ain’t it a beauty?
The EWin Gaming Chair has a durable steel frame and a 330 lb. weight capacity. It is constructed using 16mm diameter steel tubing and a 1.5mm thick metal frame, which is covered with polyurethane leather and high-density cold cure foam. According to the EWinRacing website, this foam provides better elasticity resilience and a longer life span. The PU Leather is listed as stain resistant. During tests, I spilled some liquid on the chair and then waited 30 seconds to wipe it up. Once the spot dried, I could no longer tell that there had been a spill there at all.
The chair is full of options and adjustment levers. You can do everything from the seated position except adjust the height and reach the tilt adjustment. A recliner-like lever on the right-hand side lets you freely adjust the angle of the backrest. The backrest can be adjusted from 85 to 100, 120, 135 and 155 degrees.
Another lever at the bottom raises and lowers the chair hydraulically. A round disc can be twisted to adjust the chair’s stiffness (meaning its ability to rock backward when you lean into it).
There are two buttons on each armrest, one at the front and one at the back. The front button lets you pivot the armrest at 45-degree angles, while the back button elevates the armrest’s position.
Your mileage may vary with the pillows. Some people will no doubt find them luxurious, but for me, the lower pillow was bending my back and killing my spine, and it had to go. I had no issues with the upper pillow. This is probably why they’re strap-ons (they come shipped pre-strapped). You can have both, just the upper, just the lower, or none at all. Options, baby!
The EWin Gaming Chair is so big and sleek and neighbor-enviable, I really wanted it to work for me. But the shape of the seat forms a convex bump in its middle, and combined with the stiffness of the foam, it made for an unpleasant sensation after days of testing. If my butt could talk, it would say with the voice of Danny DeVito, “Sorry, Mac, but I just ain’t feelin’ these new digs.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t for me. Your reaction to the EWin Calling Series Ergonomic Chair may be different. Continued regular use of the chair, past the time available for a review, might have helped break it in, and everyone is built differently, after all.
It comes with warranties of different length for its various parts: 10 years for the metal frame, 2 years for the seat mechanism, arm rests, wheels, headrest/lumbar support pillows, five star base and gas lift.
The EWin Calling Series Ergonomic Computer Gaming Office Chair retails for $359.00 USD. At the time of writing, it is available on sale via the manufacturer’s site for $209.00 USD. For more information on the EWin Calling Series Ergonomic Computer Gaming Office Chair, click here. Enter the code “popgeeks” to get 20% off any of the EWin gaming chairs.