Steelcase - Gesture Shell Back Office Chair - Truffle

Absolutely the most comfortable office chair I have ever owned. Easily adjustable, great back support, comfortable seat even when sitting for long periods of time. Highly recommend!

INTRO: I am a software developer. I don’t have the best back, but I often rotate between sitting and standing at my height-adjustable desk. For over 4 years, I’ve been using a generic mesh task chair that cost me $200. The seat was comfortable and breathable, and my arm rests had a fair amount of adjustability. So to migrate from an affordable task chair to a flagship chair like the Steelcase Gesture, you could imagine my excitement. And while overall I do like the Steelcase Gesture, you shouldn’t expect it to be perfect right out of the box. This chair is really meant for those who are committed to developing their seating posture, and that can take time. UNBOXING & SETUP: I had the Gesture shipped to my house, and it came in a 34x27x21 inch box. It was a little unwieldy for me, but I was able to get a grasp on it and bring it into my home. Opening the box, the chair was separated into 3 separate pieces—the wheelbase (with wheels assembled), the seat, and the pneumatic cylinder to connect the two. The easiest way to set up the chair is perhaps to connect the pneumatic cylinder to the wheelbase, then place the seat on its side or back, then connect the other side of the pneumatic cylinder to the seat. At that point, you’ll want to make sure you apply pressure to ensure both the seat and wheelbase are connected. This took me only about a minute or so to assemble. BUILD: In terms of build, the Gesture is well-made. Although it is plastic like most chairs, the rigidity of the plastic is quite good. It’s not rickety like cheaper chairs, and the control mechanisms instill confidence in their build. The fabric is also well-knit without any rips or tears in the seams. ADJUSTMENTS: The Gesture has the most number of adjustments I’ve seen on an office chair. Like all pneumatic chairs these days, you have the height adjustment which can be done simply by adjusting your pressure on the seat and pressing/pulling on the height lever on the front-most knob on the right of the chair. You can also adjust the seat forward and backward by rotating the front-most knob, and you can even do it while seated. So there’s no need to stand up to adjust the seat. Additionally, the backrest can be adjusted via the other knob on the right of the chair. Rotating the knob can adjust the tension required to move the backrest backwards, which is very helpful if you want to sit in an upright 90 degree position, or laxen it up to make it easier to lean back in the chair. This knob also has an adjustable tilt lock that can prevent the backrest from moving beyond a certain point. However, one downside about this mechanism is that the backrest cannot be locked into a specific position—it always returns to a 90 degree upright position when you’re not applying force to lean it backwards. So if you’re used to leaning back into a specific position, the Gesture will not help you do that, and it caught me off guard. There is also a lumbar adjustment slider on the sides of the backrest that can help provide some rigidity, although it doesn’t have the ability to adjust how much rigidity you want to apply at any given position. Lastly, the arms and armrests are probably one of the best features about this chair. The arms can be lifted up and down, they can swivel inward or outward, and the armrests can slide forward and backward as well as rotate, giving you a lot of options to suit your posture. COMFORT: In terms of comfort, I think the Steelcase Gesture is only as good as you can make it. It provides many of the adjustments to create a comfortable seating position, but it doesn’t inherently tell you what those might be. So you really have to dial in each of those parameters and spend some time doing trial and error to achieve good results. While I don’t feel as though I had issues with the seat, my first hour sitting in the chair was not that great for my lower back. And this is really because of the point I just mentioned—you need to find what works for you, and that can take time. As I’ve slowly made more and more adjustments, I’ve begun to find better typing posture thanks to the flexibility of the armrests. And my lower back discomfort has begun to diminish as I’ve worked towards determining what posture is most comfortable for my body. I’ve had experiences where I tried a chair at a store for a limited time, then brought it home to realize that the short-term usage was really not enough to help make a good judgment call. But a chair with as much adjustability as the Steelcase Gesture is likely to be a more confident pick when you bring it home. However, you’ll still need to put in the time to find the best posture for you. CONCLUSION: I’ve used the Gesture for long hours of mixed use (14+ hours) at my desk for work and even gaming and felt quite comfortable in it, overall. But I didn’t come away with the impression that it’s a life-changing chair. People tend to hype up these expensive flagship chairs or say that they “swear by x chair”. But there’s really a lot of companies making well-designed ergonomic chairs, and I don’t think the Steelcase Gesture is necessarily designed for ergonomics as much as it is designed to facilitate different postures—even poor postures. I think many people can appreciate the versatility that the Gesture provides, and if you need a chair where different people are going to sit, it’s nice to choose a chair that can fit the needs of many different body types. So while I think this is a great chair for the right person, it has gotten significantly more expensive over the past several years while competition has become more fierce. So while this is undoubtedly a great chair with a 12-year warranty, I do think it’s at least worth considering other brands before looking to pay this very high price.

Horrible, the backrest is misaligned with respect to the rest of the chair. I ordered a replacement and it’s worse than the first one. I have it all documented. The chair feels like it’s made out of grade D recycled materials.