That doesn’t mean it’s cheap. Currently listed for $795 Herman Miller website (£845 in the UK), this is hardly a ‘budget’ option, but at less than half the price of the Embody, it’s certainly more affordable and boasts the same attention to ergonomic detail you’d expect from a company with a reputation for delivering the best in the business when it comes to parking your derrière for long periods of time.
For your money you get features like ‘Enhanced Gamer Tilt’, ‘PosterFit Spinal Support’ and a chest support pad, as well as the usual stuff you’d expect like ‘air suspension’ materials and an adjustable headrest. Especially, Embody does not work they come with a headrest, and for streamers and people who work at a desk in an upright position, this may not be such a problem. But for anyone who wants to sit back and relax in a chair while gaming – perhaps with a Nintendo Switch in hand – the headrest is a welcome addition here.
You also get a 12-year warranty, so the price becomes more reasonable when viewed as a long-term investment.
What’s in the box?
Vantum comes in three pieces. Simply slide the seat onto the base, sit on it a few times and you’re almost done. The headrest slides into the back and offers quite a bit of resistance, but after double checking we hadn’t missed the ‘release’ button or anything, a little force got it into position for us and we were good to go.
The textile cushions, armrests and legs are black, but there is a choice of three color options for the backrest and seat frame: ‘Obsidian’ black, ‘Polar’ white or ‘Flare’ red. Compared to your average gaming chair, it’s all pretty fancy and muted – no LEDs or harsh markings on them. The red adjustment wheels under the seat and the wood adjustment on the back add a touch of opulence, but the small label and stamp on the back are all trademarks on show. Herman Miller sent us a white version and it blends in nicely with an office environment without screaming your gamer credentials to anyone peeking their head through the door.
Aside from some warranty papers and bumps, no customization instructions are included, so you’ll have to experiment or go online to find out exactly what each button and lever does. It’s all relatively self-explanatory, but for the price, you can expect to find a small laminated card in the package detailing how to adjust the wooden support, best holding practices, and what have you.
First impression
After wheeling our Ikea Hattefjäll into the spare room, we sat down and began adjusting the Vantum to our liking — overall height, armrest height and position, seat position, headrest level and angle, wooden support, and so on.
It’s easy to set up, but it’s immediately apparent that this chair is designed to improve your posture and make you sit up straighter. We spent a lot of time fiddling with the tilt resistance dials to find something that didn’t feel like we were sitting in a high-backed medieval banquette chair.
Vantum’s “active, forward-leaning alignment” came as quite a shock at first, or at least it did to us. If you dropped 800 bills on a chair, you might expect to sit down and it would be the most comfortable piece of furniture you’ll ever fit, but that wasn’t the case here. Our first impressions were mixed — it certainly wasn’t ‘Where have you been all my life?’-a revelation in style — but that was before the chair scolded us harshly.
What is it like to live with him?
Fortunately, the advantages of Vantum became clearer over time, and as we adjusted the workspace a bit.
At first, the adjustable armrests felt frustratingly far apart to support our elbows, even at their narrowest. This forced us to move the laptop closer to the edge of the table, which in turn further separated our elbows and pushed us back into a better, more upright sitting position. Our tendency to lean over the edge of the desk as the keyboard moved further and further away as the day wore on no longer worked. Vantum would not allow that.
For the first week or two, it sometimes felt like the chair was a teacher slapping us on the wrists whenever we fell back into old bad habits. Thanks to its design, it can feel like it’s punishing you with a short ‘sit up!’ which needs time to adapt.
In fact, those early days with the chair reminded this writer of switching to a vertical ergonomic mouse for the first time after too many years of assembling Billy bookshelves with a manual screwdriver. Along with this there was also an extended adjustment period, as the cursor repeatedly crossed the target and, for a week or two, a similar feeling that this new-fangled piece of equipment was an expensive waste of time.
But in a similar way, Vantum grew on us. After four weeks of 8+ hour work with it, the best we can say is that our backs haven’t hurt for the past three and a half weeks. Without any other changes in our daily routine, this improvement can be reduced to a matronly slapping of the chair on the wrist.
It’s strange to consider that this piece of furniture is trained our, and it would be easy to ‘reject’ its inflexibility when it comes to accommodating messiness, but, ultimately, results are results. As someone with a history of back problems (including rare bouts of sciatica), Vantum got the job done.
Playing with Vantum
So the chair promotes good posture for PC gamers, streamers or anyone sitting at a desk, although it’s quite possible to sit back and relax in it. Those eye-catching red dials under the seat adjust the tilt limit (left) and resistance (right) allowing you to find what works best for you no matter what situation you’re playing in.
That doesn’t mean it’ll suddenly become a couch you can put your feet up on while you munch on Doritos and ‘Dew. It’s still a serious, business-like brand of chair that won’t let you slide off and settle into your old position. However, we spent a good few hours playing the Switch handheld in it very comfortably.
As something designed for a desk, it’s hardly in its natural habitat wheeling it in front of your 55″ OLED gaming console on a docking station. But if that’s something you want to do, the Vantum keeps you suitably upright, supported and comfortable during long gaming sessions and the addition of a headrest this time is a big plus when you lean back.
Conclusion
If you have developed bad sitting habits, the Vantum may seem like a difficult driver at first. However, as a tool to actively improve and maintain your posture while sitting, it certainly doesn’t make the job any harder. If you’re the type of person who hires a personal trainer, but really just wants to chat during a light workout, you probably won’t do well with this gaming chair. This one is a drill sergeant who will walk you through the motions and pick up on every little mistake in your posture, but you’ll thank him in the end. After all, if you want a bean bag, you should probably get one. If you want to invest (and is investment) in a serious gaming, streaming and desk chair — and one without all the neon ‘gamer’ baggage — the Vantum is a fine, no-nonsense option.
Thanks to Herman Miller for providing the review sample. The Vantum Gaming Chair is now available Herman Miller website.
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