Ficmax Gaming Chair Review
When it comes to purchasing any chair, longevity is important; however, it is often difficult to find a gaming chair that meets that criteria without paying a large amount of money. Many of the more affordable chairs on the market will unfortunately only last about a year before you start encountering issues.
Fortunately, with its $200 price tag, The Ficmax Gaming Chair manages to find a nice middle ground between durability and affordability.
In this Ficmax gaming chair review, I’ll tell you what this chair can do, and what it can’t. I’ll discuss if the Ficmax Gaming chair is worth your money, and give you some alternatives to consider.
Ficmax Gaming Chair Review Highlights:
What We Liked
- Sturdy build and good overall durability.
- One of the best quality and most adjustable gaming chairs in its price range.
- Good variety of aesthetically pleasing colors and styles to choose from.
What We Didn’t Like
- The placement of the headrest and short footrest extension length make this chair slightly more uncomfortable for taller individuals.
- A combination of thick foam and polyurethane leather lead to the chair feeling slightly stuffy during extended use.
- The massage lumbar feature doesn’t quite hit the mark.
Ficmax Gaming Chair Review: Specifications & Features
- High-Quality PU Leather Upholstery
- Massage Lumbar Support
- Adjustable Footrest
- 2D Height Adjustable Armrests
- 90-180 degree reclining
| Dimensions | 33.8 x 12.6 x 25.2 inches |
| Product Weight | 51lbs |
| Material | Pu leather cover, high-density shaping foam, metal framework. |
| Weight Capacity | 300 Pounds |
Ficmax Gaming Chair Review: Our Insights
Build Quality
Although it still has its shortcomings, The Ficmax Gaming Chair stands out with surprisingly decent build quality.
A good quality to judge a chair on is how well it holds its shape and feel over time, and the Ficmax Gaming Chair does not disappoint in this department. The chair is built with 4.8-inch thick high-density memory foam, which is able to stay nice and cushy even after many long gaming sessions.
The surface of the Ficmax Gaming Chair is made out of polyurethane leather. Polyurethane leather is more prone to tearing and fading than natural leather, but it also comes at a much cheaper price.
The surface of the chair stays soft and comfortable for a good amount of time even under heavy use. If you don’t mind minor tearing every now and then, you will be satisfied with the quality of the Ficmax Gaming Chair’s surface.
The chair features two support pillows, one for neck support and one for lumbar support. As far as the pillows themselves are concerned, they do their job well enough and are not anything too special for a gaming chair of this price.
The elastic bands used to adjust the support pillows are not incredibly durable, however, and they are prone to stretching after a while.
The armrests, wheels, and backrest recliner are durable and show no signs of damage after repeated use. The wheels themselves don’t lock but are still able to stay in place unless deliberately moved.
It is important to note there are some reports of the piston in the height adjustment mechanism producing issues after around 6 months of use. This is disappointing, but given the good build quality otherwise, this is a minor issue (especially because it is covered by the 1-year limited warranty).
Ergonomics
In the ergonomics department, the Ficmax Gaming Chair is about what you would expect from a gaming chair. It provides decent neck and back support, but the use of pillows as support and the bucket seat may not be preferable to an office chair for some. These aren’t shortcomings of the chair though, they are just design features that most gaming chairs share.
The Ficmax Gaming Chair is incredibly flexible, with a broad 90 to 180 degree reclining range, 360-degree swivel, and a rocking function. If you’re interested in doing more than just gaming with this chair, these functions will prove to be very useful.
Even at its maximum height, the neck support pillow may only sit at around shoulder height if you are taller than 5’10”. Both the neck support and lumbar support pillows are removable, however, so this in and of itself is not a dealbreaker. Another thing to note is that the footrest does not extend very far, and maybe unusable for those around 6’0” and taller.
If you are the right height to use the footrest, however, it is a much-appreciated feature that is certainly nice to have. The footrest itself is made out of the same foam as the rest of the chair, so it is admittedly high quality and serves to add some extra comfort for those who can use it.
The Ficmax Gaming Chair doesn’t do anything overly ambitious, but it checks all of the right boxes and doesn’t leave out anything important that other chairs of its price range include. For most people, the Ficmax Gaming Chair is able to provide a combination of good support and a decent array of options to adjust to an individual’s needs.
As always, make sure that gaming chairs are a good fit for your body type before deciding to purchase one.
Adjustability
The adjustable parts of the Ficmax Gaming Chair are as follows: neck and lumbar support pillows, armrests, seat height, and chair tilt.
The neck and lumbar support pillows can be vertically adjusted but as mentioned in the previous section they cannot be adjusted to accommodate height past a certain point. Aside from that, you should be able to make minor adjustments to the pillows in order to make the chair slightly more comfortable. This is appreciated, but also an expected feature of a gaming chair.
You can adjust the armrests and seat height to fit with the height of your desk or put both down in combination with reclining the chair backward if you want to relax. Both the seat and armrests have a wide adjustment range, so you should be able to sit comfortably at most regular height desks.
Being able to adjust the armrest forwards and backward help the ergonomic quality of this chair, but it is not something that ruins the chair.
The chair being able to recline all the way back to 180 degrees is very nice and allows you to make finer adjustments based on what you need. While all of the other adjustable parts here are pretty standard, it isn’t always guaranteed that a gaming chair can recline this far back.
Comfort (Seat, Back, and Arm)
In most situations, you won’t run into any issues with comfort sitting in the Ficmax Gaming Chair.
The foam inside the chair is nice and firm while not being stiff, the polyurethane leather surface is soft, and the armrests aren’t hard enough to cause any major irritations. If you do find yourself uncomfortable, there is enough adjustability to hopefully alleviate some of your issues. If you have a bigger build and use the chair for long periods of time; however, you may run into some problems with breathability.
The Ficmax Gaming Chair is a sturdy chair, and while that is usually a good thing, sometimes the density of the material combined with prolonged use may end up causing you to feel a bit suffocated. Due to the nature of the chair, this issue is not very easy to fix. If you have had issues with gaming chairs feeling cramped in the past, the Ficmax Gaming Chair will probably not be a significant improvement for you.
The lumbar support pillow has a massage feature, which means that it will softly vibrate when connected to a power source via a 67 inch USB cable. Keep in mind while using the massage feature you cannot unplug the USB, so this may affect your maneuverability.
The massage function has two levels of intensity, both of which are hardly noticeable. It is disappointing that there are not more options to increase the intensity of the vibrations; due to this the massage feature comes across as pretty pointless and does not add much value at all to the chair.
All things considered, this is a comfortable chair in most situations.
Value
The Ficmax Gaming Chair blows most other low to middle-price range gaming chairs out of the water. If you are looking for a chair to use for 3-5 years, this chair will give you an amazing return on investment.
Although it is in the more expensive part of its price range, the extra ~$30 is worth it for the solid build quality alone.
For the $199 price tag, you are getting an incredibly solid chair that is comfortable, adjustable, and durable. The massage feature doesn’t harm the value at all, but it won’t really affect your decision to purchase and you won’t get much extra value out of it.
Ficmax Gaming Chair Review: Buying Experience
Shipping
According to Ficmax’s FAQ page, they are currently only shipping to the United States with shipping to Canada and the EU coming soon.
Ficmax offers free shipping within the United States and they state that their products are usually shipped within 3-5 business days.
Assembly
The total assembly time for the Ficmax Gaming Chair is around 17 minutes.
Some buyers have reported that parts of their chair were shipped already assembled, which led to some confusion with screws that they thought were missing but were actually already in place. This is not a common occurrence, just something you should look out for to avoid confusion during the assembly process.
The assembly process is fairly straightforward, but if you buy the chair through amazon you can pay an extra fee for expert assembly.
Warranty
The Ficmax Gaming Chair comes with a 1-year limited warranty on replacement parts. You can also buy a 3 or 5-year protection plan through Amazon.
Return Policy
Ficmax has a 30 day free return policy as long as the chair is in its original box and packaging material, as well as in “brand new and unused condition”. Return requests that fall outside of that policy are taken on a case by case basis and may or may not be fulfilled.
For more information on how to submit a return request, refer to this webpage.
Ficmax Gaming Chair Alternatives
Ficmax Vs DXRacer
DXRacer is one of the most popular gaming chair brands out there. It offers adjustable armrests, tilt-rocking capability, angular backrest adjustment, and Height adjustment.
The DXRacer Gaming Chair is much more expensive than the Ficmax gaming chair, but is it worth the higher price tag? That depends on how much you value the extra features that it brings to the table.
The DXRacer chair is constructed with anti-collapse foam and a 2 mm carbon steel rod framing, which improves the comfort and build quality over the Ficmax chair. The build quality of the Ficmax Chair is still great; however, but if you want something more high end, the DXRacer is a minor improvement.
The DXRacer chair also includes 3D armrest adjustability, which allows the armrest to be adjusted in all directions, instead of just vertically. In terms of reclining though, the Ficmax chair actually beats out the DXRacer, as the latter can only be adjusted from 90 to 135 degrees. The DXRacer chair also does not come with a footrest.
If having a slightly higher build quality is important to you, and 3D armrest adjustment sounds useful, then the DXRacer may be an alternative that you want to consider.
Ficmax Vs GTRACING
The GTRACING gaming chair is one of the few racing style gaming chairs under $200 that you'll find with a footrest. It's an excellent bang for your buck offering solid build quality, comfort, and features.
The Gtracing and Ficmax Gaming Chairs are competing in the same price range. The Gtracing Chair is slightly less expensive than the Ficmax one, but where they really differ is on build quality.
As far as adjustability goes, the Gtracing has the same armrest adjustability and the same adjustability for its support pillows, but it can only recline back to 170 degrees instead of 180 like the Ficmax chair. Both chairs have footrests.
Gtracing also offers an extra seat cushion for those with a heavier build. If you’re unsatisfied with the Ficmax chair’s seat, this may be something to look into.
Because these chairs are so similar in function, the real decider on which one is more worth your money is build quality. The Ficmax Gaming Chair is around 7 pounds heavier than the Gtracing alternative and has a slightly sturdier build.
It seems to me as if the Ficmax Gaming Chair has more value than the Gtracing Gaming Chair, despite the higher price tag. However, if the Ficmax chair is outside of your price range, the Gtracing chair is similar enough to work as a cheaper alternative.
Ficmax Vs RESPAWN
If you're looking a racing style gaming chair with a footrest, then the RESPAWN 110 is one of the best options out there. Excellent quality at an affordable price.
Compared to the Ficmax Gaming Chair, the Respawn 110 Gaming Chair is a lot more breathable, but at the cost of build quality and adjustability. The Ficmax chair can support 25 more pounds than the Respawn chair and has a higher overall build quality with denser foam. This means that the Respawn chair is more breathable, which may make up for the build quality if you are planning to spend long sessions in your chair.
In terms of adjustability, the Ficmax chair has more options than the Respawn chair. The Respawn chair doesn’t include vertical armrest support and only reclines from 90 to 155 degrees.
Seeing that the Respawn chair costs more than the FIcmax chair and has fewer features, I would say that the Ficmax chair is the superior buy. If you have a bigger build and are worried about the breathability of the Ficmax Gaming Chair, then you may prefer the lighter style of the Respawn Gaming Chair.
Conclusion
This chair is not without its problems.
If you are taller or have a bigger build, you may be uncomfortable if you plan on spending extended periods of time sitting in this chair. Also, while it does have adequate adjustability, this chair does not do anything new in terms of gaming chairs and sticks to a fairly standard design.
Additionally, if you are looking at buying this chair because of the massage feature, you would have a better time looking for a different chair.
All in all, the shining feature of the Ficmax Gaming Chair is its stellar build quality for the price. It’s almost guaranteed that you will get a few years of use out of this chair without any major problems. On top of being durable, this chair is also comfortable and has enough room for adjustment to fit most people.
If you’re in the market for a gaming chair and don’t have much to spend, this chair would be a worthwhile investment.
