Vertagear Triigger 350 Black Gaming Chair Review

I’ll admit, spending money is one of my least favorite things to do with it. At the same time, spending money on “smart” things is a different story. I’m talking about the everyday usage things, like shoes, mattresses, pillows and chairs. A recent study claims that the average American sits 13 hours a day, so what are you sitting your body in for all that time? A cheap $25 dollar chair you got off Craigslist? Introducing the Vertagear Triigger 350, an amazingly comfortable, versatile chair that costs a lot of money. Is it worth the dough?

Even before you take it out of the box, you can tell this chair is going to be well-made. It’s heavy (about 50 pounds), but with that heft comes the undeniable feel of quality. Once you unbox it, you find that it's remarkably easy to set up, with no tools required. I was impressed with how slick the design is, and once you get it together (took me under ten minutes, from box to sitting), it feels rock-solid.

Touted as a gaming chair, the Triigger 350 looks more like an office chair, with muted color-highlights and jet black everything else. In short, this chair looks like it's here for business. No overstuffed, fluffy back-rest or faux leather; this bad-boy has tight, high-quality stitching, calf-skin leather and DuPont TPEE and PET Mesh, which, as we all know, is a thermoplastic elastomer. Now, I don’t know exactly what that means, but I do know it doesn’t make my back or legs sweat, it breathes like crazy and it’s both stretchy and firm at the same time, which simultaneously contours to, and supports your body. It’s kind of like the chair equivalent of wearing a mesh tank-top, only no one is going to make fun of you for sitting in this chair. Unlike a mesh tank-top, this thing looks cool as hell.

The big feature of this chair is the adjustment triggers, with one located at the end of each armrest. The triggers control cables through a “dual-spring” module that contains over 80 components, which sounds impressive. Basically, with a click, you can adjust the tilt and height of the chair. The triggers are modeled after a formula one race shifter, although all the comparisons to gaming and formula race cars in the brochure are a bit silly. Still, the chair is undeniably easy to use, and the triggers really are convenient, I just personally don’t switch things up all that often once I have found a comfortable position.

The arm rests are perfect, plenty wide and the length is great as well. You can swivel the armrests in or out easily, but they stay in place when you need them to. You can also move them up, down, left or right independently of one another, and the material is a perfect mix of soft and hard, which you won’t notice until you sit in a different, inferior chair. Even with my elbows pressing in on the armrests in order to angle my hands towards the keyboard, I never feel irritation or soreness. They appear to be made of hard plastic until you press down hard and feel the give. I thought I would miss padded arms, but I don’t at all.

The wheels are hub-less casters, and although the chair rolls fine, it is just a little rough. You aren’t exactly gliding across an ice-rink, but the wheels still feel solid and don’t rattle which is great, especially considering they have to hold the chair’s 50lbs plus my weight.

The lumbar support is where this chair really shines. In addition to scooting the seat forwards and backwards (great for making sure you aren’t cutting off the blood flow to your legs), the lumbar support can adjust up and down and you can angle it as well, which does wonders for your back. I mean, this thing is kinda saving my life. I didn’t realize how poorly supported my back was until I sat in the Triigger 350 for a month and then went back to my old chair. My God, the difference. Now, even at a movie theater, sitting on a park bench, wherever, I yearn for my Vertagear and its firm but extremely customizable back support. The chair is a lot of money, but if I lost this one, I would have to find something really great to keep me from buying another one. It’s hard to overstate how much better my sitting posture is and how much healthier my back feels now that I’ve been using this chair.

Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room; price. This bad boy costs $700 bucks, and it doesn’t come with a headrest, either (add $70 for the headrest). Now, a $700 chair is the highest I have ever heard of, but I usually buy things used, off the street because I spent my first million dollars on crab-cakes and a life-sized statue of a werewolf eating a tub of country crock, then I forgot to make my second million. This chair would be a major financial decision for me, BUT. My back has never felt this level of support, and the features that I was chuckling at when I first sat down have now become integral parts of my work day. If I had to go back to my old chair, I would be very, very upset, and so would my body. The way I look at it, is that some people spend $300 on a pair of shoes and wear them for ten years. Other people buy endless pairs of $30 shoes and complain about their feet hurting all the time. It just depends on which way you want to go. No shame either way.