DXRacer Craft series review — Visually flashy, but covered in pain

I’ve had mostly bad experiences with gaming chairs. The ones I’ve reviewed have typically had some kind of giant design problem that made them a pain to sit in. The only one I’ve ever truly liked was the DXRacer Air Mesh chair, which I reviewed a few months back. When I got the offer to review a brand new DXRacer chair before its release, I jumped at the chance. The DXRacer Craft Series is a lot like the Master series chairs, which I haven’t gotten to try, but you can pick from one of the series’ highly-detailed varied styles. What I wanted was something with the same high-quality build as the Air, but with a nice, comfortable seat and back. While I mostly like the way the Craft chair looks, it’s got a problem that makes it practically unusable for me.

The construction for the DXRacer Craft Series is undeniably solid. It has the same quality metal base and maneuverable armrests that the Air Mesh chair has, but with a classic racer chair-styled pillow at the top. The pillow is memory foam and extremely plush and comfy, although the positioning makes it very difficult for me to actually sink my head into. It was one of the first things I felt after opening the box, and it got me hyped for the rest of the chair. If the pillow was this nice, how would the seat be?

It’s in the build

Assembly was just like every other office chair I’ve put together, but this is by far the most impressive-looking chair I’ve ever had. The back has elegant, Japanese-style embroidered koi fish artwork, complete with artistic waves. These waves continue on to the seat’s base and sides. A large “Craft” sits in gold at the top of the chair and on the pillow alongside the DXRacer logo on the front of the seat. If it was just that, this would be a gorgeous chair. Unfortunately, the seat itself has tacky Kanji, with “Lucky Always” written in a hideous font below it. This part of the chair looks like something you’d expect to see in a cheap restaurant.

Feature-wise, though, this is a high-end office chair, as you’d expect. You can choose how much resistance you want the back to have, and you have a good degree of control over how far back it reclines. Attaching the pillow is kind of weird, however, as you need to do so using these two straps on the side of the chair, which I’d never seen before. At a glance, the DXRacer Craft series appears to be among the best gaming chairs you could buy.

Make ’em say “owwwwww”

Unfortunately, the illusion was destroyed the moment I sat on it. Naturally, I’ve used a lot of chairs in my day. This sounds like hyperbole, but I swear it isn’t. The DXRacer Craft series has the absolute least comfortable seat and back of any chair I can remember sitting in. It’s astoundingly hard and, yes, it hurts to sit in. I sleep on a firm mattress. I eat dinner seated in an all-wooden chair at my dining table. It’s somewhat uncomfortable, but still not as uncomfortable as the Craft. Because of leg problems, I use a cheap, $50 USD shower chair from Home Depot when I shower, and even that flimsy thing is significantly more comfortable.

It’s not like I’ve never had issues adjusting to a new chair before. You know how it is. You get a new one and your back has to adjust before things start feeling “normal.” But this is different. No matter how long I sit in the DXRacer Craft series, I’m still completely uncomfortable. The only way it could be worse is if the seat and back were just slabs of granite. A relative of mine sat in it and their response was identical. I’ve never once heard this person complain about a chair, but, after a couple of minutes of sitting in this one, their thoughts echoed mine exactly. The chair also arrived partially damaged, as some of the plastic on the back of it was gouged out.

It’s not a good feeling to receive a free chair only to absolutely hate it and then tell people that I hate it, but I simply can’t imagine how this chair got the okay. The Master series got good reviews on sites and in stores. I searched online, though, and people on Reddit were complaining bitterly about how hard and uncomfortable some DXRacer seats are, so it’s not just me. I can’t imagine who this chair is for, but, hey, if you like to sit on really hard, uncomfortable chairs, then, okay, you might like this. Everyone else should look elsewhere.