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Oct 16, 2024

Review: Hinomi X1 Chair | The New York Sun

You don’t need to spend four-figures to get top-comfort for the home office. Every time I see the announcement that a media company has laid off workers, or reduced their plans to account for

You don’t need to spend four-figures to get top-comfort for the home office.

Every time I see the announcement that a media company has laid off workers, or reduced their plans to account for “changing economic conditions,” or sold off assets, I look to see if I can find pictures of their current offices. It’s not to figure out the cost of the office space, or try to spy out some ridiculous luxury expenditures, as you might see at a Silicon Valley tech company. Rather, I’m looking at the chairs; because, invariably, they all are sitting on Herman Miller Aeron or Embody office chairs.

This is hardly a surprise. After all, Herman Miller is the first name in ergonomic office supplies, and what self-respecting office wouldn’t equip their employees with the cushiest of chairs? However, precisely because they’re such an obvious choice, which companies will buy by default, they’ve long abandoned competitive pricing.

So, those now redundant media employees are sitting in chairs that their employers bought for about $2,000 per pop. And though they are good chairs, they’re nowhere near that value. And so, comes the Hinomi X1.

To start with the downsides compared with the Herman Miller products; the X1 has more visible plastic, particularly around the base and the pull-out foot-rest, and it doesn’t look as good. The polished metal arc along the back of the chair is quite chic, but the rubberized lumbar support and embroidered logo in the headrest feel far from premium, and overall, it just looks like yet another chair, rather than something with more personality. There also are only three colors — black, dust pink, and my light grey option — and there are no upgrade options for plush leather pads and the like. To be clear though; it’s far from an ugly chair. But it’s just not that special.

Those really are the only downsides though as, comparing it back-to-back with a friend’s Embody, the X1 has all the features, plus a pop-out foot rest, and is basically just as comfortable. Oh, and it currently only costs $699.

To run through the features; it has a 3D-adjustable lumbar support, which bends and moves up and down with adjustment; a four-panel backrest, which provides balanced support; and everything rotates and adjusts. The backrest, headrest, and arms all independently adjust in angle and height, and the arms can also pivot, change depth and with placement, and rotate to an angled 30 degree position, which make them great when leaning back with the aforementioned foot rest popped out.

It also comes in three different sizes, and unless you’re Shaquille O’Neal, you should be able to find a height and specification that perfectly meets your preferences, for great home-office ergonomics.

Most importantly though; despite most of the surfaces being plastic, they are all very high quality. Having used this daily for several months, the chair is exactly as comfortable as when I bought it, with no sag anywhere, including in the mesh seat fabric; and that isn’t always guaranteed. Entry-level chairs are often designed to be soft and plush when you buy them, at the expense of how they age, and a $350 Sihoo chair I bought in November was already sagging and unsupportive by March.

The long and short then is that it’s comfortable, durable, extremely customizable, and — though not luxurious or unique — not ugly either. One way of looking at it is that $700 is a lot to pay for a chair from a company you haven’t heard of. The smarter view though is to realize that you’re saving more than $1,300 by doing so.