College Life; When To Upgrade Your Chair and Mistakes To Avoid

With the introduction of online learning being common the past few years (and for the foreseeable future) I think it’s a good idea to get a new computer chair before college, if you have a dedicated one. In this post, I’m going to go over why it’s a good idea, what to look for and the average price range for certain types of chairs.

First off, it’s an entirely personal choice whether or not you choose to upgrade your chair. But one motivator you should keep in mind, is your comfort if you need to be sitting for long hours at the desk.

First off, you’ll want to decide if you want to get a gaming chair, ergonomic chair or an office chair since those three are the most common. If you’re going to be sitting a lot, I would just choose between ergonomic or gaming since they offer the most support.

Why a gaming chair? Think Youtubers, or Twitch streamers. They will have to sit for hours on end, filming, streaming or editing (if they don’t have a video editor). I wouldn’t put it past them to invest a lot into a comfortable chair, and one of the notable brands they use is Secret Lab.

Those chairs are expensive, but also seem very comfortable. And as a bonus, many people rave about the chairs lasting quite a long time because of the quality.

Now ergonomic chairs on the other hand, I feel like they are just pricier office chairs. They have good support but I know that if you want one than one support, the price may just go up for that. I’ve also heard some people saying that some ergonomic chairs aren’t worth the price, so watch out.

From my own research, it seems that gaming chairs can range from $150-$700+ and ergonomic chairs range from $200-$900+, and as mentioned before the price will go up with each additional feature. So, then, what’s better? Well, that is on personal preference.

I personally think that gaming chairs should be better, and should be built to last longer. Not that I have anything against ergonomic chairs, but when I was looking at buying a new chair, price and comfort was a big factor and many of the ergonomic chairs I tried felt a little weird.

If you don’t mind spending a little more, I recommend getting Secret Lab chairs. You can find some of the older versions available on their site for about $500~. However, like many college students, that will break our budget.

I personally will recommend a brand called AKRacing, this is the brand of chair that I got. I got it on sale at Staples during the spring for $299 + tax, it’s normal retail price at Staples is $429.99. It’s pretty basic and you will need some effort for assembly, the box it comes in is also huge so I wouldn’t attempt to buy it without enough space in your car + a hand trolley or something.

To make it easy for you, here are some things that helped me choose the chairs. I also looked on Amazon but nothing really caught my eye, and I noticed that there were a lot of mixed reviews so I didn’t really feel comfortable buying any of those.