In December 2022, I decided to get a new chair for my gaming setup. My old chair was creaking and begun to show signs of wear and tear. I’ll use it from time to time, but the main chair for computer productivity has been replaced. At first, I purchased a gaming chair from a company called “Respawn Products” which is a company based in North Carolina. Today’s review is about Respawn’s RSP-210 Gaming Chair. It retails anywhere in the United States for $240 to $285. However, I purchased it at Sams Club, and it cost me $169.98.
First Impressions
My first impression of the chair was “Oh, cool. It looks sleek, let me sit on it now!” I’ll get to the subject of comfort in the comfort section. But from here, my first impressions went from “cool” to “Eh, this is a lot of work.” The lumbar support is available, but.. you.. don’t really have control over how lumbar support is positioned. I understand why it was designed the way it was, but customization is key with people. You can take it off, and move it around – vertically. That’s the issue, though. Vertically. It’s technically a strap with the lumbar pillow itself. When you first set it up, the strap needs to be “clipped” into the plastic hand on both ends. This limits customization. I’ll go into more detail later.
Design/Durability
For the most part, the support for the backend, where the lumbar area is, and the headrest is. It’s sturdy, strong, powerful. I like the design, it looks like a racing seat, and that’s where the “wow” factor comes in, but ends there. (The image below shows the strap on the upper casing of the lumbar support. That’s what I meant.)
Armrests/Lumbar Support
I’ll start with Lumbar. For the most part, lumbar does NOT have padding. The only “pillows” there are, is the lumbar support, and the headrest. This creates a hollow lumbar between the nape of your hips, and the overall back. The first time I sat on the chair, I had to adjust my back to look like a slanted back. Because the lumbar part of the back has taken up 20% of the space, the rest is a hollow gap, where you have to slant your back to fit. At the end of the day, your body feels like a “U” shaped slant.
I will give the Respawn Gaming Chair credit: It allows you to tilt your chair to a certain position of your choice. Like a recliner. And has an extra legrest under the padded butt rest. And that’s where it ends.
The arm rests are weak. You can’t really rest your arms, because the armrests is actually integrated into the padding for your butt. If your arm is heavy, or you slam your arms into the arm rests, it will wobble at some point. It already does without me trying to brute force the armrests. In my opinion, this is the cheapest part of the whole chair.
Headrest
A headrest is a headrest. Nothing to really complain about here. It’s nothing to write home about. Most gaming chairs have it. My issue is more of the hollow space between lumbar, and the headrest. Movin’ on.
Overall Comfort
My biggest complaint is comfort. There is little to no padding on the chair to speak of unless you’re talking lumbar, headrest, and the padding for the butt. My biggest complaint, however is the padding for the butt. I like that Respawn thought of making the padding a bit “firm.” But the padding doesn’t really have strong butt support. Their press release claims that “Respawn’s New Gaming Chair Cools Your Butt With Heat-Dispersing Gel” which is a complete lie. Your butt will sweat under the RSP-210 Chair. And it’s very painful to sit for many hours with RSP-210, because the butt padding is too strong. It’s “firm,” but when I say firm – I meant it’s designed to last. It’s designed not to show wear and tear after a certain timeframe. At the expense of or for comfortability.
Price
For the amount of “chair” I would expect a better quality chair. I mean, the MSRP is between $240 to $285 generally. I bought it at less than the MSRP, but most well-known generic chairs are around that $250 mark. This makes Respawn look bad, if the quality does not match the price it locked itself into. They have more expensive chairs, hovering around the $400 mark, so… if I had to recommend Respawn to anyone, I would say “No, don’t buy the higher-end chairs from Respawn.” Because RSP-210 was released April 7, 2021 and they have not fixed the issues brought up with their earlier releases.
Materials
- Pros: The overall chair is pretty sturdy, powerful, sleek looking but some parts are cheap enough to break at some point. The armrests is the perfect example of low-quality design, at expense reducing production costs. (Which is funny, because Respawn Products uses a Chinese manufacturer as distributor for these chairs – which makes production cheaper…. ANYWAY.)
- Cons: As I mentioned under comfort – that butt padding needs to be improved in order to sell and retain new customers. It’s why people BUY gaming chairs in the first place, but the standard of quality is low with Gaming chair. You’re asking for pain.
You’d think that a gaming chair is for gamers. A product “By Gamers, for Gamers.” You’d think a product DESIGNED for gamers, would have been comfortable for gamers.
Final Verdict
As a first time buyer of Gaming Chairs, I am sorely disappointed with the quality of Gaming Chairs. It shouldn’t be this way. I like the racing car design, as gaming chairs, but these manufacturers don’t engineer these chairs to be comfortable enough for gamers, livestreamers, gaming livestreamers, content creators, and the like. Respawn Products says that Respawn Gaming Chairs were inspired by FaZe Gaming’s branding, style, and likeness – but at the end of the day, they are sitting on your chairs. You’re supposed to make your customers feel comfortable using your chair(s).
Respawn Gaming Chairs are nice looking, but is cheap, not meant to last long as a consumer product. You buy product, you use the product for long periods of time, and then you praise the product to friends, family, acquaintances, or your livestream visitors. There is none of this.
Misc. Feedback
Respawn Products doesn’t realize there is an intense competitive landscape around gaming chairs. I see a lot chairs in the gaming space. A lot of YouTubers are using either Respawn, or their competitor. Most livestreamers are getting sponsored and using their “breaks,” as advertising for the chair.
I recommend Respawn Products to really move their manufacturing plants from China, to somewhere else in order to save their prospective Public Relations outcome. It may be cheap, but it’s not entirely comfortable.
