During end of summer 2020 I began to have issues with my old home office chair. It was never meant for the home office but it had served me a long time as such. It was a sturdy chair but it wasn’t really an ergonomic one. At mid-September 2020 I placed in order for the new chair after a couple of weeks of collecting information and shortlisting what would be my next chair. I ended up choosing Secret Lab Titan 2020 XL. Now, after 7+ months after using the chair I thought it would be a good time to share my experiences.
Some reasons why I chose Titan 2020 XL (Stealth):
- Chair needed to be rated for my weight
- Reasonably priced
- It would have to be easy to care (carefree)
- Well adjustable to fit my needs
- Reviews and recommendations from the net / from colleagues
- Preferably black and have more professional look than those fancy colored gaming chairs.
I finally got my chair at end of November. Secret Labs does have a long delivery time, but they did meet the estimate they gave me during ordering. Delivery estimate was November 25th and packed was delivered on November 19th.
The packaging of the chair was really good: all parts were clearly marked, everything was there and overall it had the feel of Premium-tag all over it. But more importantly: assembly of the chair was easy with instructions provided. I did assembly alone and it didn’t take too long. I recall I was in a hurry as well since there was an event going on where I was attending and I was eager to replace my chair with the new one.
Conclusion and feelings after 7 months of use
I didn’t want to write any review earlier than this. I have been using the Titan XL chair now for over 7 months. In the beginning I had to adjust it much more, before I found a suitable pose for me. The Titan XL is a big chair and it is also a hard chair in that sense: it is designed to support heavier people and thus it has much more stiff in various areas. The height adjustment doesn’t go as low as I would like to since this chair is also intended to suit taller people (I am just heavy) but I found an easy workaround from a standing mat to cover those missing 2cm. In time the front of chair has pressed down a bit, so now that small height gap is actually gone.
The chair supports me very well. It is very comfortable to sit in – and on those rare occasions when I need to I have rest on it by adjusting the backrest. This Secret Lab video shows very nicely how you can adjust it:
Some pros and cons on the material. It is carefree / easy to care and feels good most of the time, but obviously on those hotter days (yes, even in Finland has those. Sometimes. ) it gets hot as well. No, it doesn’t turn itself to sauna but the structure doesn’t breath much either. It is not as bad as I feared, but if you sweating easily you might want to keep this aspect in mind. Perhaps Secret Lab adds a cooling system one day to above-the-top models. 😄
The locking system isn’t 100%. There is always some gap that allows the chair to move a bit – even when locked to a position. It is not much, but it does cut off some quality feeling (why 500€ chair has this gap in locking?). This bothered me in the beginning more, I’ve gotten used to it.
I really like that I can move armrests forward/backward. It would be even better if there would be more room for movement. Sideways movement I haven’t used much: I placed them to most wide position and keep it there because it matches my arm’s pose.
The big thing is that I don’t see much wear on it after these 7 months. There are no new sounds, no new gaps – it is still almost like it was when I sit on it the first time. The most notable are wrinkles on front of seat due to weight and legs pressing down the front. As long as that front doesn’t loose it’s elasticity this chair should serve me a long time.
Yes, I am happy I purchased this chair. It is not perfect, but matches my needs quite well for it’s price. If the perfect version would cost 1000€ then I think I would not pay the extra. Of course there are office chairs in various price categories but to me this looked to be the best match.
Vesa Nopanen - My Metaverse Day 