This gaming chair has been a game-changer for my productivity – here's why

The Mavix M9 gaming chair ($999) isn't cheap, but after sitting in one for the better part of a year I've come to appreciate the value of this sturdy, high-end gaming chair.

This is a big deal for me because I'm 6'4" and nearly 40 years old, so it's not easy to find any chair I can sit in comfortably for more than a few hours at a time.

While it took me some time to assemble and get comfortable with, once I mastered the many ways you can adjust the M9 and fine-tuned it to fit my lanky frame I felt like I could sit in it all day without any complaints from my aching back. And when I do start to feel a twinge, the optional Elemax lumbar massage unit ($129) helps alleviate my lower back pain and keep me gaming long into the night.

But honestly, while this gaming chair is great for supporting me through hours of gaming it's just as helpful during marathon work sessions. In fact it's been a game-changer for my productivity, since I no longer feel the urge to stand up and stretch every hour or two just to alleviate backaches.

I also love that the Mavix M9's subtle good looks don't scream "gaming chair", making it easy for me to recommend not just to folks seeking one of the best gaming chairs but anyone who needs a sturdy, comfortable and highly adjustable wheeled throne.

Mavix M9 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A premium ergonomic gaming chair with a wide gel seat, a mesh backrest and multiple points of adjustment.
• Who is it for? Folks who can afford an expensive gaming chair and want something that's highly adjustable and comfortable enough to work and game in all day.
• What does it cost? The Mavix M9 starts at $999, but that price can climb as high as $1,292 if you splurge on the Elemax lumbar massage unit and ultra-adjustable arm upgrades.
• What do we like? The comfy wide gel seat, sturdy build quality, multiple points of adjustment and cool mesh back all make this an easy chair to love.
• What don’t we like? That it doesn’t come fully assembled is frustrating given the high price, and the massage unit upgrade has a woefully short charging cord that can make you feel yoked to your desk.

Mavix M9 review: Specs

Mavix M9 review: The ups

It took me a few hours to assemble my Mavix M9 review unit and figure out how to get comfortable in it, but once I did I started to appreciate some of this expensive chair's killer features.

This is a seat I'm happy to take

First and foremost, I love how comfortable the wide, padded seat is on the Mavix M9. It's roughly 22 inches wide and constructed of a thick, padded memory foam that feels comfortable and cool even after hours in the chair.

Mavix advertises this "extra wide" seat as one of the key selling points of the M9, claiming it keeps the sweat off thanks to its "cool gel M-foam" material and ribbed design intended to facilitate airflow.

After sitting in this chair every day for over six months, I'm pleased to report it does indeed keep me cool under pressure. More importantly, the wide padded seat is something I'm happy to plop down in every morning when I sit down to work, and loathe to leave when my better judgment reminds me I ought to raise my standing desk and spend at least some of my work day not sitting on my butt.

I love how well I can fine-tune this chair to fit my weird frame

The Mavix M9 has so many points of adjustment that at first I was a bit flummoxed, as I'm used to basic desk chairs that have simple height and recline depth levers and little else.

But once I learned my way around the M9's many levers and knobs (chiefly by watching the company's video guide) and spent some time fine-tuning it, I was impressed—and more comfortable than I've felt in any other chair.

The M9 offers at least eight points of adjustment, from the seat height and depth to recline tension to the height of the backrest and DVL (Dynamic Variable Lumbar) support pad.

While I wish Mavix offered an old-fashioned text manual alongside its video guides, after watching the video a few times and playing around with the knobs and levers I found the M9's adjustability to be one of the best things about it.

I think having a wide range of adjustment points is one of the key values of a great ergonomic gaming chair because I believe the definition of "ergonomic" is unique to each of us, so it's critical to have lots of room to adjust even small details like seat depth and armrest angle.

While I'm not sure how ergonomic it is to lean all the way back in your chair, I confess that I love doing it, so I appreciate the deep (up to 127 degree) angle this chair can achieve at maximum recline.

Sturdy, supportive and easy to move

I'm over 6 feet tall and weigh nearly 200 pounds, so there have been times in my life when I get a bit nervous about plopping my butt down in a flimsy or cheap chair.

Not so with the Mavix M9, which feels sturdy and supportive even after nearly a year of daily use. While a significant portion of the chair is girded in thick plastic, it's undergirded by a metal frame that helps keep the chair feeling sturdy—which is key when I'm reclining all the way back or animatedly rocking around in my chair on a video call.

The five blade wheels on the bottom of the chair have also held up well during my review period, and their rubberized coating shows no signs of wear despite hours of rolling around on my wooden floor.

In fact, they're a little too easy to roll around on, to the point that if I'm not careful I sometimes find myself sliding farther than I'd like during heated gaming sessions. That can be a hassle when you're yoked to the desk by headphone cables or charging cords (more on that later), but luckily you can independently lock each of the five wheels when you need to minimize your maneuverability.

The massage unit upgrade is worth paying for

The Mavix M9 is already awfully expensive to start, but if you're considering spending $999 on a gaming chair I highly recommend you splurge and tack on the $129 Elemax massage unit because it's my favorite thing about this chair.

Mavix was kind enough to send us a review sample with the Elemax massage unit upgrade and while I wish the vibration it delivers was a bit stronger, it's good enough that I always try to keep it charged so I can give my lower back a bit of heated massage at a moment's notice.

The unit is built into the lumbar support pad of the chair and sports three control buttons on the rear right side. One governs the massage level (off, pulse or continuous vibration), another sets the level of massage (high or low) and the third controls whether you want the pad to be hot or cold. In cooling mode the Elemax unit uses two internal fans to cool the pad, while in heating mode it can quickly warm the pad (up to 131 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Mavix) for serious relief. However, keep in mind that the heating element automatically shuts off after 15 minutes for safety purposes.

In my months of testing this chair I found myself rarely using the cooling element, perhaps because the chair is already so good at keeping me cool under pressure. But I use the heating and massage functions all the time, to the point that I'm loathe to go back to a chair that lacks this feature.

You should be aware that the thing does make noise in use and you do need to plug the Elemax unit in to charge it via a covered power port on the rear of the pad. The battery is good enough to last for several massage sessions, but given how often I use it I tend to leave it plugged in when not in use so I don't have to worry about it dying when I need it most.

Mavix M9 review: The downs

The Mavix M9 is a premium gaming chair that works equally well for office work, but it does cost an awful lot yet requires you to assemble it and sports some odd design shortcomings.

Some assembly (and heavy lifting) required

The Mavix M9 is heavy and does not come assembled, which you should know before you drop upwards of $1,000 on this premium gaming chair.

My M9 review unit arrived in a big black box on my doorstep, and while I was able to shoulder it and lug it up a flight of stairs to my apartment without injury, I didn't exactly love the experience.

So if you aren't feeling enthusiastic about your chances of carrying the 60-pound chair (plus a few more pounds' worth of packing materials and extra parts) home to your office, I highly recommend you get a friend or family member to help you with this chair.

Luckily, the assembly process is straightforward and doesn't require a second person to help you (although I'm sure it wouldn't hurt!) When I unboxed our M9 review unit I found a fairly easy-to-assemble smorgasbord of clearly-labelled chair parts, along with a few smaller boxes of key bits (screws, wheels and the like) and some scraps of paper that pointed me to the Mavix website for video guides on how to assemble the chair.

Again, I wish the company would include more detailed paper instructions so I didn't have to rely on Mavix's brief video guides. But I do appreciate that it cuts down on paper waste and most people will likely be assembling the chair in front of their PC anyhow, so it's not a huge hassle to have an instructional video playing in the background.

The actual assembly process was straightforward, and while I wouldn't say it's "easy" since you have to maneuver some fairly heft parts, I had our M9 review unit assembled in roughly 15 minutes with minimal confusion and cursing.

Admittedly I had a few parts left over, but over six months later the chair is still holding sturdy so I must not have done too bad a job.

As great as the Elemax upgrade is, the charging cord is too short for comfort

I think the optional Elemax massage unit upgrade helps this already-expensive gaming chair deliver premium comfort during marathon gaming/work sessions, but I hate the charging cable.

The cable itself is roughly 5 feet long and plugs into a round power port on the back of the chair. The other end of the cable terminates in a USB-A connector that you plug into an included power adapter, which you then plug into a wall outlet. That means you basically need to have a free power socket within easy reach of your chair if you don't want to have to wheel it over to a wall outlet whenever the massage unit is out of juice.

Of course, most of us have a power strip or two on or near our desk, myself included. The problem is, even when I plug the chair into the power strip on the floor right next to my desk I still feel chained down, because I can barely move the chair without risking yanking the charging cable out.

I can appreciate why you might not want a 20-foot charging cable snaking around your gaming chair, but even just a few extra feet of cord would give me so much more peace of mind when using the M9 while plugged in. Instead, I basically learned to only charge the chair when I'm done for the day so I don't have to worry about forgetting it's plugged in and accidentally yanking the cable out (or worse, breaking something) when I roll the chair away to stand up.

But even that handicap isn't foolproof, because as often as not I forget the chair is plugged in when I sit down in the morning, and then suddenly 30 minutes into my workday I start to roll it away from the desk and POP — the charging cable is yanked out of the back of the chair and falls clattering to the floor. It's something you can learn to avoid, but such a short cord feels less than premium on this high-priced gaming chair.

Mavix M9 review: Verdict

The Mavis M9 is a gaming chair that doesn't look like it, and the sturdy, comfortable and highly adjustable chassis has helped boost my daily productivity so much (by making it easier for me to focus and work longer) that I think it gives even the best office chairs a run for their money.

There are enough points of adjustment on the M9 that I feel like I can fine-tune it to my body for a more ergonomic gaming/work session, and the lack of dazzling colors or garish design elements ensures it fits right into my home office and doesn't provoke funny comments from coworkers during work meeting.

I think you do get what you pay for with this chair, but it's heavy and expensive and there are some elements that don't feel as premium as the price tag, like the lack of detailed assembly/adjustment instructions and the too-short charging cable on the optional Elemax massage unit.

So while I recommend the Mavix M9 and think it's a great chair, there are alternatives that might suit your needs better if you don't require a sturdy, highly adjustable gaming chair that can also blend in at the office.

The Haworth Fern is a similarly-priced office chair that's just as adjustable and comes fully assembled, for example so you don't have to deal with the hassle of screwing things together. If you're okay with a slightly garish design, the Secretlab Titan Evo NanoGen is a gaming chair that's a bit cheaper than the M9 yet offers impressive adjustability and lumbar support for premium comfort.

Of course neither of those alternatives is available with the Elemax heated massage unit upgrade, which comes on Mavix and X-Chair hardware like the excellent X-Chair X3 A.T.R. Management Chair. While I wish it was a bit stronger and cheaper, I can't deny that the massager is my favorite part of the Mavix M9's design and worth the upgrade price. It's worth noting that Mavix and its sister company X-Chair will often throw in an Elemax unit for free during big sales events they have several times throughout the year.