The German manufacturer Backforce launches its OnePlus gaming chair on the market. We tested it for several weeks.
For several years, chairs for video game players have been attracting brands. Easily sold by influencers, these chairs often sport a design more thought out to imitate the codes of motor racing, rather than those of comfort for our backs.
The German brand Backforce intends to make a name for itself in this competitive market with a very customizable product, capable of wearing the colors of a streaming channel.
The Backforce One Plus chair
The brand was born in 2019 with the ambition to create the ideal chair for gamers and the esports sector. It comes from the German manufacturer Interstuhl for the manufacture of chairs with a 10-year guarantee on each product. This is very good news for the carbon footprint of the product, compared to chairs made in Asia, but also for the working conditions in the manufacturing process.
The Backforce One Plus chair that we are testing here is marketed from 684.46 euros by the brand on its site, taxes and delivery included. The particularity is to be able to customize the appearance of your seat through many options, the color of course, but also the labels that will appear at shoulder level. Enough to have a chair in the colors of a Twitch channel or an e-sports team.
Last precision, this seat is for people measuring between 151 and 192 cm for a weight between 45 and 130 kg.
Few explanations to the assembly
The first step in any chair test is obviously assembly. The instructions are limited to a sheet of paper describing 15 steps with diagrams, without any descriptive text. We must admit that for certain stages, we did not find the diagrams very explicit, despite our long experience of assembling Swedish furniture.
The assembly is divided into three main stages. First the assembly of the base with the 5 wheels to be fixed by hand, then the seat to be attached to the base and finally the backrest to be mounted on the seat. If the first two parts simply require nesting parts, the third will require some elbow grease and preferably two people to complete the assembly.
A short hour to understand everything and screw correctly, and we now have our One Plus chair ready to use. We must still confess that we were a little disappointed by these editing stages. Between the plastic that creaks, the screws that are a bit difficult to install and the instructions that lack clarity, we did not have the impression of dealing with a premium product. Let’s temper by indicating that the assembly in a few steps with only six screws in all and for everything remains simple, despite the diagrams.
A design too inspired by the automobile
That feeling clearly didn’t diminish with our assessment of the seat’s design and construction. Starting with an idea from BackForce that we find questionable to say the least: the addition of an illuminated logo to the back of the chair. The brand provides with its seat a small logo illuminated by an LED and removable. It is therefore a piece of electronics, a battery, a lamp, which have only a very low aesthetic interest. We were highlighting the carbon footprint of a product built in Europe, but this point really disappointed us. Especially since the small lamp has the nerve to recharge in microUSB, a connection that we hoped to have eradicated several years ago.
Like the small light covered with plastic that creaks as soon as you press a little to turn it on, the seat does not particularly inspire confidence in the quality of the manufacture of the seat, despite the manufacturer’s pedigree and the long warranty period. Obviously, this is the kind of thing that should be evaluated over a very long period of time to know if the finishes will get the better of the seat or not. After several weeks of testing, our copy suffered from no defects. This is already a good sign.
So let’s talk about the materials used to make this seat. The part where the user sits is covered with a soft-touch fabric, while the back is made of faux leather, giving the chair the look of a tub. On these points, our only criticism will be the soft texture which tends to easily attract grease and dust and which will be difficult to maintain. This is particularly the case of the armrests.
Rigid comfort…
As for the comfort of this seat, the brand has chosen a “sandwich” construction. If we mentioned the leatherette finishes earlier, it is indeed the exterior finishes. Under the coating, the manufacturer integrates foam and a layer of wood to ensure both rigidity and flexibility. It is also this wooden and faux leather backrest that will provide lumbar support. We do not find here the small cushion that some brands like to provide, and which is most often not recommended by doctors. On the other hand, it is impossible to adjust this lumbar support since it is integrated into the backrest. Ergonomic seats, particularly at Herman Miller, offer solutions to adjust this important point of the back.
So we have a BackForce seat with a very rigid backrest, which will force you to adopt a rather upright posture. It’s not to everyone’s taste, and we found the backrest a little too rigid for our own tastes. It’s up to you to see if you prefer this kind of seat or if you’re more of a fan of ergonomic seats or chairs with padded comfort. No problem, however, with the soft-looking foam seat. We never encountered any comfort problems on this point, even after long days of use.
Overall, the BackForce One Plus chair therefore offers good comfort of use, but is not for everyone. Those who appreciate a very rigid support for a fixed seat will find their accounts. The others turn to softer seats.
Laborious settings
On its official website, Backforce highlights the many settings offered on its seat. As in all things, there is quantity and quality. Let’s list what’s on offer.
- Seat height adjustment
- Backrest and seat tilt forward/backward lock
- Seat depth adjustment
- Adjusting the armrests forwards or backwards
- Adjustment of the space between the armrests
- Seat tilt adjustment
- Adjusting the angle of the armrests in relation to the backrest
We therefore have a fairly wide choice of settings, which is obviously pleasant for adjusting the seat to one’s preferences. However, we are a little disappointed by the implementation of the settings in question. For example, the adjustment of the armrests goes through buttons to be held down to adjust.
This pushes you to make adjustments in spurts and not in finesse. The various manipulations are done on plastic elements and which do not inspire complete confidence.
This is one of the points that disappointed us during our test, especially since it is one of the first interactions we have with the product, since we quickly want to adjust it. after assembly.
Backforce One Plus price and release date
The Backforce One Plus chair is available directly on the brand’s website from 684.46 euros. The manufacturer also markets the Backforce One model that we have not tested, from 533 euros on Amazon.