I am reasonably satisfied with this chair, but there are a few things about it that need improvement. The main thing is the arms. I was concerned from the pictures that they weren't cushioned enough--and they aren't. But worse than that is that they're too far forward. I mean, ridiculously so. My elbows hang off the back of them and the front of the arms are alway banging into my desk when I turn my chair slightly. It's too bad they can't be adjusted to move forward and back. It's hard to imagine anyone on whom these arms would be a good fit. Maybe some huge fellow with extra-long arms would need the arms that far forward, but I'm a medium-frame woman with average arms.
Also, when I lean to the left a little, the chair goes "ka-thunk!" downward a half inch or so. I hope this doesn't turn into a problem with the hydraulics or make the chair break at some point. I also wish the chair's cushioning was...cushier. However, it's leaps ahead of the old chair I was using. I can sit in it for two or three hours without being in agony. I do like the adjustable head and lumbar cushions, too.
Oh, and did I mention the nearly-impossible assembly? Fortunately, I didn't have to do it myself, but I did have to watch my partner struggling mightily with it. The "instructions" are nearly useless; you know, the kind with almost no words and pictures that are clear as mud. And some maneuvers, like having to put a bolt in and blindly fish around inside the chair, with no guides, trying to find the interior part it fits inside of, were so accursedly difficult I found myself offering to hire someone to do it so my sweetie would quit straining his back trying to hold a 55-lb. chair whilst attempting the impossible. He finally got it (yay!) but a well-engineered chair would not be made that way.
All in all, if I had it to do over again, I might look for a different chair. For four hundred dollars I expected more. So, I'll give it three stars because it will do the job, but no more because it could have done it so much better.
