Mavix M9 review

Mavix M9: Two-minute review

A lot of gaming chairs claim to be premium; then there's the Mavix M9. It's a tough chair to categorize. It's clearly one hell of a step up from traditional office furniture, but it also doesn't look like a traditional gaming chair. 

Still, when it comes to what matters, the Mavix M9 is undeniably the best gaming chair we've ever gotten our hands on and butts in. So, we're going to set aside the topic of the price for a bit and talk about what the M9 actually offers first.

When you look at the Mavix M9, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it's some kind of concept design meant to show you what the most perfectly built-for-comfort chair would look like in a perfect world, if only someone would take the risk and build the thing. Well, Mavix built the thing, and it's honestly hard to imagine going back to another gaming chair after this.

One of the biggest problems with gaming chairs of all kinds is that the vast majority of them are not built for comfort. They're built to look cool on a Twitch stream. Many companies lure gamers in with the usual race-car-seat aesthetic that makes one chair impossible to distinguish from another; maybe they figure they can save money on the materials.

Even the top-tier gaming chairs that do go above and beyond the industry standard can only really get you four to six hours of comfortable use, which is about the amount of time you'll spend doing a well-run MMO raid on a Friday night.

With the Mavix M9, on the other hand, it's hard to tell when time ends and butt-nirvana begins. Even after a full workday and then some in the M9, you might be forgiven for not realizing you've been sitting down the whole time. The initial comfort of sitting on the *checks notes* Mavix Cool Gel M-Foam seat cushion is genuinely pleasant, and then you literally forget about it as you go about doing whatever it is you do for hours on end.

No uncomfortable warmth (or layer of sweat), no dull-nuisance pressure points that become noticeable and then bothersome over time. Nothing, you feel nothing; and it's kind of stunning to realize that this is how sitting is supposed to feel. You're not supposed to notice comfort. That's the whole point of being comfortable. Monarchs have fought wars to accumulate fortunes large enough so they could commission seat cushions for their thrones that didn't even come close to this.

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Then there's the "dynamic variable lumbar" support. The mesh nylon fabric breathes incredibly well (and gives space to heat, cool, or "massage" your back with the optional ELEMAX insert), and the lumbar panel adjusts to support your back without any effort on your part, something a number of other gaming chairs lack entirely or make you adjust manually.

The wheels on the unit we reviewed weren't the traditional casters you'll find on just about every other chair on the market. They remind us of the rubberized/nylon wheels on a pair of Rollerblades, and the chair rolls just as smoothly as a result. If you have hardwood flooring, you'll never be able to go back to regular caster wheels again, both for the damage they prevent as well as the nearly noiseless movement they provide. Each wheel is individually lockable as well, which is – again – something your flooring will appreciate.

The headrest, back height, seat position, and armrests are all adjustable, almost entirely by simply moving the component piece into place. The armrest height is controlled by a button on each arm, and the seat height is controlled by the usual lever arm underneath the seat.

The back is supported by a seriously robust spring construction, so you can lean very far back without the chair feeling like it's about to tip over. (But please, don't test this too rigorously; physics is physics, after all.)

The adjustments are where some issues start to reveal themselves, however.

They do require you to physically move some pieces around, and some adjustments are easier to make than others. There aren't really any clear interfaces that identify where adjustments are possible, so we ended up pulling on different parts to see if they moved. And there was a noticeable amount of wiggle in just about every part of the back and arm pieces, whether it was adjustable or not.

Those pieces also indicate the unevenness of the materials used in the M9's construction. Some parts, like the wheels and seat cushion, are incredibly premium materials unlike anything we've seen in a gaming chair. Other parts, like the armrests and wheelbase, are the same basic plastic construction you'll get with even the cheapest gaming chairs out there. For some, this might be a major issue, especially given how much you're paying for the Mavix M9.

And here we are: the price. The Mavix M9 starts at $999 / £863 / about AU$1,400, with the ELEMAX lumbar insert costing an extra $129 / £155 / about AU$180, and a footrest costing an additional $44 / £53 / about AU$65.

Currently, Mavix only has shops in the US and UK, and Australian customers will have to buy the M9 from either the US or UK site and ship it internationally, so expect to pay higher shipping, exchange fees, and other associated costs as a result.

Given the price, it's worth noting that Mavix offers a 30-day return policy on its chairs (with a restocking fee of $122 and $200 for the US and international customers, respectively), a five-year warranty on all moving parts and an additional seven years on non-moving parts. It's not a perfect promise that you'll be satisfied with your purchase, but it's not nothing.

Still, this is undoubtedly a lot of money for a gaming chair, so the question really becomes whether you think the positives outweigh the negatives here – and one could argue that there shouldn't be any negatives when plopping down this kind of cash. That's an understandable sentiment, especially when it comes to plastic materials in the armrests and wheelbase, as well as the "wiggliness" of some of the back pieces. 

That said, we've reviewed $600 / £600 / AU$850 gaming chairs that pushed the boundary of what was justifiable for the price but which still won out on balance despite not being anywhere near as comfortable as the M9.

Frankly, the M9 is the kind of gaming chair that actually makes us reconsider how we should view gaming chair comfort going forward. After sitting in the M9 for several weeks, future test chairs won't be able to get away with the discomforts that they've been able to sidestep in the past by pointing out that they're more comfortable than their competitors. Just try to argue that no gaming chair is ever really comfortable after a couple of hours. To them we say, have you tried this thing?

The M9 exists, and despite its issues, it succeeds on the one thing a gaming chair is supposed to get right: It must be comfortable to sit in, regardless of how long you're sitting in it. In a way, the M9 reveals that gaming chairs have been failing in their primary purpose for years, and when everyone fails, all that's left is to squabble over who has the best failing score. 

The gaming chair wars are over. We have an actual winner now, and the Mavix M9 shows us what we didn't even realize we've been missing out on all these years. How exactly do you put a price on that?

Should I buy the Mavix M9?

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