Branch Ergonomic Chair – A Versatile Desk Chair with Adjustable Lumbar Support, Breathable Mesh Backrest, and Smooth Wheels – Experience Optimal Comfort and Support – Poppy

Stylish, comfortable, not highly adjustable, has some flaws
I looked at a lot of different ergonomic office chairs, hoping to find a nice balance between price, comfort, durability, and style. It’s tough to do staying under the $400 range. I decided on this Branch Ergonomic chair based on reviews and its style. Having lived with it for a month, here are my thoughts:Assembly was remarkably simple. And the build quality seems good, except for the armrests as noted below.It looks great in my opinion. If you like how it looks in pictures, it looks the same in real life. I have the pebble with white frame. I think it’s more stylish than the other sub-$500 ergonomic chairs.I find that it is comfortable, especially the seat (I’m coming from a Knoll Life chair with a thin foam seat). But the chair is not very adjustable. The lumbar support, that I felt would be important, slides up and down but does not adjust in or out to increase/decrease pressure. So depending on your body it may not do much at all. It also does not adapt to reclining so even if it applies some support when upright I find it disappears when I recline at all. So for me I find that the lumbar feature of this chair doesn’t accomplish much at all. That defeats a lot of the ‘ergonomic’ aspects of the chair and makes me question whether I should have chosen a different chair. I think more advanced chairs do a lot more to adapt to your body as you recline in the chair; I find that this chair doesn’t do much of that at all.The levers to adjust chair height and recline lock are lower than I’d like – you can’t use them without leaning out of a normal seating position so you have to make those adjustments then return to normal position to evaluate, rinse and repeat. The recline tension knob is even harder to reach, but it seems like once you get that dialed in you don’t have to mess with it very often.One compromise I made in selecting this chair is not getting 4D (or even 3D) armrest adjustment. I do wish it had that. And even in the planes that they do adjust, they armrests do not move all the way into the position I would like (I wish they could slide further back, or even more inward). Also, as others have noted, the armrests do not have a lock in the forward/backward adjustment. This is a problem, as I find that I frequently will put my weight on the armrests (to change my position in the chair, for example) and the armrest will rapidly slide forward under that force. That sucks. Also, the armrest supports are plastic and if you put weight on them they flex. For me that’s a minor issue.The backrest alternates between two meshes (in my color selection it’s a tight-woven light grey and a more open mesh dark grey). The tight-woven (light grey) fabric is smooth and soft. The open mesh (dark grey) material is suprisingly rough and catches a little bit on my clothing. Really surprised to find that Branch used a mesh that feels noticeably hard on your skin even through your shirt. Maybe other color fabric choices are different, if so I’d recommend one of those because this backrest feels a little annoying when it shouldn’t feel like anything at all.I am someone who desperately needs a headrest and while Branch does offer one for this chair it wasn’t an option when I purchased the chair from Amazon so I wasn’t able to get one. That would make a big difference in my comfort.I’d have preferred blade wheels to the rather cheap plastic casters that come with this chair.My previous chair (Knoll) was quite old and was causing me pain. I can definitely say this Branch chair is significantly more comfortable. There is some disappointment in the lack of (for me) lumbar support and the rough mesh on the backrest, and I do wish the armrests were more adjustable. But for a relatively low-priced ergonomic chair that really does look good it’s a pretty good deal even if it isn’t the ultimate ergonomic chair. Now, if I can just get a headrest for it.

This is a $250 CAD chair at most. Can’t believe Wired rated it so high. Every part it is as cheap as possible. Doesn’t even come with a headrest. Instant return