When it comes to the best gaming chairs… well, quite frankly, I’ve never owned one. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve bought a ton of chairs throughout the years, but I’ve always gone the budget route. My current one is the Amazon Brand Uml Office Chair, which now seems to have been discontinued since I picked it up in a sale last year. But now that I’ve been testing a truly gaming premium chair, hoo-boy can I see what I’ve been missing.
My lower back has taken great pleasure in getting acquainted with the Corsair TC500 Luxe over the past couple of weeks. This is an elite gaming chair that screams quality wherever you look. Going from my cheapo Uml — which I’m pretty sure cost me less than 80 bucks — to testing out a piece of office furniture that costs $499 has certainly been quite the upgrade.
I’ve had lower back pain for a couple of months now, so when Corsair kindly loaned me a review unit, I jumped at the chance to test it… then quickly regretted said jump when my back started playing up again.
To be clear, I’m not entirely blaming the pain I’ve experienced on the budget Amazon chair I’ve used for the past 10 months. No, that’s on the driver’s seat of the used 2016 Peugeot 208 hatchback I bought back in April. Every time I get behind the wheel, I can feel it jabbing into my lower right ribs, and it’s gotten to the stage where I now have to use a pillow when I’m driving.
Thankfully using some heat pads on my back started reducing the pain, but it got to the point where I constantly felt a dull sensation around my ribs; whether I was sitting down at my desk, lying on my sofa or even walking my husky.
Luxe capacitor
Even though I’ve only used the TC500 Luxe for a short time, I can already feel my back issues lessening. Hot damn is this thing comfortable to sit in! Corsair attributes the supreme comfort I’ve been feeling to “premium breathable fabric with a quilted seat and backrest atop contoured foam, with subtle bolstering to support you all day and night.”
PR jargon aside, all you need to know is the TC500 Luxe is super-comfy to both work on or sit back to enjoy the best Steam games at your desk. The nylon fabric feels truly lush, but it also has several cool features that help justify that eye-watering $499 price tag.
Its reclining range goes from 90 degrees all the way up (or in this case down, I guess?), to 160 degrees, and you better believe I’m going to fall asleep on this amazing chair if I recline it to the max.
The seriously cool “Omniflex” extendable armrests also rotate 250 degrees, and I “may” have spent way too much time just twiddling them around because I’m a total man-child.
As much as my spine appreciates the TC500 Luxe’s four-way adjustable built-in lumbar support, it's not my favorite aspect of Corsair’s luxury gaming chair. That would be its little plush memory neck support pillow. The fact that it magnetically attaches to the top of the TC500 feels like some sort of witchcraft to me, but I’m all about it.
Pain for gain
Assembling this gaming chair wasn't fun, though. As comfortable as the Luxe is, its inner steel frame is seriously weighty. So much so that when I was attaching the seat to the wheel caster, I scraped my shin pretty badly in the process. Still, to quote The Black Knight from the legendary Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “Tis but a scratch.”
Since I put the TC500 together in my lounge, I decided to chill out on it for an hour or two to watch the first few hours of “Cobra Kai” season 6, rather than rolling it straight into my home office. It turns out that Corsair’s chair is so darn comfy, I quickly grabbed my little leather footstool from another room, and pretty much spent all weekend sitting on it. A slovenly but back-friendly couple of days that involved watching my beloved “Jaws” for probably the 50th time, before jumping into a marathon session of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty on my PS5.
I didn't even look at my sofa for two straight days, much to the delight of my dog who got it all to himself. Who knows? Maybe I’ll start rolling this gaming chair through to my lounge every night before I have to send it back to Corsair. That’s how comfortable the Luxe is.
500 Big Ones is obviously a whole lot of cheddar to invest in a gaming chair, no question. Yet if you regularly play the best PC games, have the funds to afford it, and are finding that your current office/gaming chair is causing you back aches, I’d recommend you consider checking out the Corsair TC500 Luxe.
