Osim uThrone S Gaming Chair Review - Massage While You Game!

Ever wanted to enjoy a nice massage while you're gaming? Well, here's the Osim uThrone S which can provide you just that. Osim is based in Singapore and is best known for, well, massage chairs! This is their second take on the gaming chair segment of the market. The uThrone S improves on several aspects of the original uThrone but still isn't perfect. But you've got to admit, that without a doubt, the Marvel series does looks quite nice indeed.

Today, we’re taking a look at the Osim uThrone S Ergonomic Gaming Chair. This chair also doubles up as a massage chair with in-built vibration systems. This chair is also modular with all the Osim products you can purchase, and we’ll be going a little bit more in-depth about those later on.

This chair also reclines up to 155 degrees for people who like to take naps in their chairs and it has many adjustable functions so you can fit people of all different sizes. Without further ado, let’s take a look at what this chair is all about.

The uThrone S is the second iteration of the uThrone series. You can customise the chair, which I feel would be more applicable to a lot of people, instead of having a fixed massage system. It comes with three different designs, which I’ll be going through later on.

Okay, the design is very similar to a lot of gaming chairs out there, but obviously, this is a massage chair as well. Let’s talk a little bit about the external features of the chair. To understand roughly how this fits, Ryan is currently about 177cm and he weighs approximately 70kg.

This chair fits really nicely with his frame. The backrest is not too high and not too low. We have the uCozy 3D attached now, but even without it, he can also very easily lean back and it acts as a headrest.

The chair itself is made of PVC leather, which is very nice on the skin and the cushion is actually quite soft. Also, the chair has suede textures on the sides, which creates a nice characteristic.

So you can see that this is the full-black Marvel series chair – a series exclusively available to Asia.

Apart from all the colours and the feel of the chair, let’s talk a little bit about the function. The chair reclines back all the way to 155 degrees, which is perfect for taking naps. So, in terms of comfort, this chair really does well.

In terms of the width of the backrest – Ryan's shoulders aren’t exactly too wide but you can see that it fits him just about right. So if you have a smaller frame, this would be perfectly fine for you.

Another thing we wanted to mention about the seat is that right now we have the lumbar support on the chair, which is removable. The seat depth is really deep without the lumbar support and it supports my thighs all the way to my knees.

The thing that I wanted to mention is that, when you're using the lumbar support, it takes up a bit of space on the seat. The back of Ryan's knees aren’t exactly touching the front of the seat and it creates a bit of a gap – a bit too much in our opinion. Ryan has relatively long legs, so this is something that you might want to consider.

In terms of the width of the seat, it's actually quite nicely fitted. But one thing we don’t really like about the chair is that, because of the sides, they kind of come in at an angle. For people who like to sit cross-legged, it’s also a little bit hard, which isn't very comfortable.

Apart from that, the armrests are fully adjustable. You can adjust the height, the depth and move it forwards and backwards.

The chair – three Marvel designs, is fully black, which I think will fit a lot of gamer aesthetics out there. You have Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man. Osim sent us the Iron Man version of this chair. Behind me on the backrest, you have the Iron Man chest piece there, which is stitched into the chair, as well as the lumbar cushion with Iron Man’s face. If you select the other Marvel series products, they have different designs as well. So I’ll advise you to check them out.

But let’s talk about the main reason why this chair is different from other gaming chairs out there – the massage functions.

This chair is loaded with a lot of features and customisability. One, in fact, that we're most fond of is the option to attach different Osim products to this chair to make it fit your needs, whatever they may be.

The different products that are attachable are the uCozy 3D and the uLumbar.

Let me just give you a brief understanding of what the uCozy 3D does. It gives you sort of a massage on your neck, which is really nice after long hours of sitting on your chair. Do you know how sometimes you get neck aches from sitting for long hours? This does the job perfectly right.

The uLumbar is also sold separately. It gives you sort of a vibration massage on your lower back and it promotes blood circulation, which is great because when using other gaming chairs out there, your lower back can start to hurt really easily. After using the uLumbar on this chair for two weeks, it actually provides quite a nice massage, which keeps muscles tender and they don't tense up as much. But we're sure it also involves how many hours someone sits on the chair.

With all these massage functions, you obviously have to power the chair somehow. The chair has to be plugged into an electrical outlet on the wall and it comes with a cable where you can attach it to the bottom of the seat. There are a lot of cables lying around, but there are cable management systems at the bottom of the seat that help you tidy up a little bit more.

On the side of the chair, you also have an adaptor plug where you can attach the uCozy 3D, which goes up to your neck. The uLumbar, however, is not powered by the chair itself. You have to attach a power bank externally. The uLumbar cushion has a pocket at the side where you can slot in your power bank.

Let’s go on to the usability of the chair and how functional it really is.

In terms of usability, as we mentioned before, we’ve been using this chair for two weeks. And even though this chair has a lot of really great functions like the massage system and how soft it is, the fact that it has to be plugged into the wall has caused me quite a number of issues.

What do we mean by that? We're sure having a cable lying around your chair is not exactly safe. Even though there are some cable management systems, there’s a lot of excess cables lying around, which means that we might roll over them at some point. It gives us the impression that we're supposed to sit in the chair and not move. Obviously, you can't do that. Then again, that comes with another problem. If it’s attached to the wall, you have a limited distance where you can roll around.

We feel like if you’re a gamer or work long hours at your desk, you don’t exactly have to move around very far unless you don’t have a power outlet close to your table. But if you’re already powering your workstation, you most likely have a power adaptor close by. For some people, this may be an issue.

As you can see, Ryan's workstation is powering a lot of things. He has speakers, a subwoofer, two monitors and he also has his G-drive at the back, so that means these have already taken about five or six power outlets. And having an additional one just to use this Osim chair might be an issue for some.

Another thing we wanted to mention about the cable management system is that even though there are hooks at the bottom – and I’m not talking about the power to the chair – I’m talking about the cable which goes from the vehicle adaptor to the uCozy 3D. If you can take a look at the side of my chair, I have this cable dangling around. And it’s held together by this metal thing that they give you when you buy cables. I don’t think this really adds to the aesthetic. I feel like there isn’t any way you can cable manage this.

Apart from that, we don’t understand why the uLumbar has to be powered by an external power bank since we already have the chair plugged into the wall. I guess in the next iteration of the uThrone Gaming Chair, perhaps Osim could include one more power adaptor.

We mentioned that the uLumbar comes with a pocket where you can slot a power bank in. However, not all powerbanks fit into the pocket. Taking into consideration how a lot of power banks nowadays are large, we feel like it’s going to be an issue when you’re trying to use this uLumbar. If it doesn’t fit in the pocket, you just have to put it at the side and it creates a little bit of discomfort. But for people that are smaller, this shouldn’t be an issue. But again, we think this is not the best way of organising your things when you’re trying to be productive.

The chair is usable and it’s really nice, but there are little, minor setbacks, as is true with all other ergonomic gaming chairs out there.

There’s one more thing that I wanted to mention: the chair has quite a small castor. If you’re not familiar with castors, they’re the wheels. For quite a big chair – this chair is actually quite tall – the weight, if I’m not wrong, is around 26kg. Going back to the castors, the wheels for some reason are not exactly easy to move around. So you do have to put in quite some force in order to move the chair around. Perhaps this is Osim’s way of making sure that nobody rolls over their wires. That would be very effective, but we don’t think that’s the main reason why the castors are so difficult to roll around.

Let’s talk about price. This chair will set you back almost S$1,000. I can see how the modularity and the customisability of this chair will open up to a much wider demographic – not only gamers. I’m not a gamer, but I enjoy using the chair.

Some of the products you can use in tandem with this chair are the uVision, uPulse Mat and uSqueez Hand, which is like this glove thing that massages your hand. I feel like a lot of gamers would enjoy that because they use their mouse a lot, right?

With that much being said about the chair, there are some setbacks, which I feel are major concerns, such as the fact that I need to plug in a power cable into the wall. Osim did not put a battery in for some reason and I hope they will address it because this is quite a big concern that will apply to a lot of people.

The cable management system on the side of the chair – I feel like attaching some cable management systems like the ones you have under the chair would definitely help.