People are willing to pay a lot for quality and style. Herman Miller is well-known for both, with its office chairs having earned a reputation among well-heeled offices. The Herman Miller X Logitech G Embody is the company’s take on a gaming chair and a collaboration with Logitech. It’s a gaming-focused version of Herman Miller’s Embody office chair, one that takes the company’s extensive furniture design expertise and combines it with Logitech’s gaming sensibilities. It’s hard to get past the sticker shock, though. This gaming chair costs $1,495!
Minimalist Style
The all-black Embody is closer in design to Herman Miller’s other chairs than the typical overbuilt, reclining, faux-leather-covered gaming chairs. Both the seat and back are covered in a light memory foam layer that’s wrapped in breathable black fabric. The color scheme matches the chair’s black, plastic-and-metal legs. The only color splashes that you’ll find are the familiar Logitech blue on the chair’s back lining, adjustment triggers, and seat bottom. It’s a low-key look, one that you may not expect from an expensive gaming chair.
Lengthy Warranty
The chair’s very high price tag gets you two things that don’t typically come with gaming chairs. First, it arrives fully assembled; you don’t have to put it together. Second, it has an incredible 12-year warranty that far exceeds most gaming chairs’ one-to-three-year warranties.
Seat Adjustments
Purchasing the Embody means giving up one common gaming chair aspect: locked reclining. Unlike most gaming chairs, the Embody doesn’t have the typical reclining back. It tilts backward to a certain degree, but always springs to an upright position when you aren’t actively leaning back. That said, there are seven primary adjustment categories you can set by pressing buttons, pulling tabs, or turning knobs.
Pulling the blue joystick-like trigger set into the knob under the right side of the seat lets you adjust the chair’s height using a standard pneumatic column. Twisting the knob adjusts the Embody’s tilting tension. Doing so doesn’t cause the Embody to recline like gaming chairs, but it offers a range of springiness for leaning back in your seat. With the tilt limiter disengaged, you can lean back at a fairly deep angle. Turning it on, you can limit the tilt to just a bit, or almost none.
Adjust each armrest’s height by pressing the button under the armrest and pulling it up or pushing it down. Set the armrests’ spacing by simply pulling them inward or pushing them outward.
For lumbar support, you adjust the chair’s “Backfit” by turning the knob behind the seat on the right side. A clockwise twist gives the chair a flatter back, while a counterclockwise twist gives the chair a more curved back. Finally, the two handles under the front corners of the seat let you adjust seat depth, sliding it back and forth to best suit your body.
All of these adjustment points make up an extensive system that lets you tweak the Embody to fit your body just right. It takes a bit of experimentation, but eventually you’ll have a chair that comfortably forms to your back and lets you easily lean back without losing support. These adjustable elements are typical for Herman Miller’s Embody office chairs, but the Embody has two minor tweaks that are designed to appeal to gamers.
A Comfortable Sit
According to Herman Miller, the seat features additional padding so that you can more comfortably play games when sitting upright rather than leaning forward or backward. The seat also has cooling foam designed to help reduce sweatiness if competition gets frantic. Besides those gamer-centric elements, this appears to be the same chair as the standard Herman Miller Embody.
After making all of the aforementioned adjustments to customize the chair to myself, the Embody felt very comfortable under me. It contoured to my back whether I sat erect or leaned backward a bit. The seat supported me, and provided just the right distance from the back to feel natural. The light, suspended foam padding didn’t feel bulky or heavy like most gaming chairs feel, and effectively disappeared as I worked. The chair delivers as promised, once you dial in the little adjustments to make it fit your body well.
It’s $1,500
Is the comfortable fit worth the chair’s price? It depends. The chair feels good, but it doesn’t feel $1,500 good. For the same price as the Embody, you could buy a supportive and comfortable SecretLab Titan (an Editors’ Choice for gaming chairs), plus a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series X. Investing in a well-made supportive gaming chair is worthwhile, but not when it starts to eclipse your monitor or graphics card budgets.
The excellent engineering and 12-year warranty give the Embody appeal, especially with the promise that it will last more than a decade. That’s a better guarantee than you’ll get with any other gaming chair on the market. Still, the Herman Miller X Logitech G Embody chair is far too expensive to realistically consider unless you have very deep pockets. If you’re in the hunt for a reasonably priced gaming chair, the excellent, $399 SecretLab Titan is the way to go.
