What is the Best Computer Chair to Buy?

Video – VLog #55

What is the best chair for sitting at a computer all day?

What is the most comfortable computer chair?

Are expensive office chairs worth it?

Script – VLog #55

Willie Nicol: Hello everyone and welcome to vlog number 55 in the series The Techno Dinosaur Meets The I.T. Geek. I am Willie Nicol, the Techno Dinosaur, due to my being technically challenged.However, I’m also a personal development life coach based in Troon, Ayrshire, Scotland, U.K.

Willie Nicol: With me today is my usual partner in crime, David Logan, the I.T. Geek. So, how are you today David, and where are you?

David Logan: Hi Willie, I’m great. Partner in crime you say. I am the I.T. Geek. I’m the guy who is going to sort you out, the Techno Dinosaur. I am the I.T. Geek, the person who takes the jargon out of technology for you, the Techno Geeks. Based here in Annan, south west of Scotland, and it’s a fantastic day.

Willie Nicol: Yes David, it is indeed. It’s a lovely, sunny day here too. My question for you today is this. For the past year and a bit, we’ve all been stuck in the house. We have been on Zoom using our computers, laptops, whatever you call it. Basically, sat on our backsides. So, the question today is, what’s the best chair, computer chair, whatever type of chair, to have given the fact we’re still working from home and possibly for another wee while yet?

David Logan: Best type of chair I would say is one which is not over relaxing. One that makes you sit upright. And you’ve also got to think of position of your eyes to the camera, not the screen, but the camera when you’re in the Zoom or Skype or Microsoft Teams.

David Logan: Now, why I say not a relaxing chair is because you don’t get comfy, you don’t fall asleep, you get the “Zoom fatigue”. But you also need one that’s upright. And a big tip to stop falling asleep and stop your body seizing up, especially with you getting to that geriatric stage now Willie, if you don’t mind me saying that, is to keep moving. So, I’m moving slightly away from the chair but I’m saying geriatric, but I’ve actually picked up on this very much myself as well now. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but if you sit there for two hours solid, I feel stiff when I leave my chair. So, I’ve got a solution for that, it’s the mini exercise bike below your desk.

Willie Nicol: Excellent, excellent.

David Logan: Back on the topic though, on a serious note, that is true though, I did see it the other day, mini exercise bike. Seats should be rigid not over comfy, but I don’t think they should be hard wood backs so it’s uncomfortable, you have to have something that is comfortable. Now, there’s different thought processes here myself, I’ve got a seat here with arms on it which I find is good. But it could be lazy, if you keep putting your elbows on to the arm, you end up with a blister. So, that’s maybe one tip I could say. By the way that is not sore, it looks worse than it actually is.

Willie Nicol: Oh dear, dear, dear.

David Logan: That’s not a carpet burn neither from last week.

Willie Nicol: Okay, David. Part of the reason for me asking this question, rather belatedly unfortunately. I’ve just purchased a new computer chair and I bought one with a kind of mesh back because I found with my old computer chair, I sometimes got very warm on my back, and a bit, let’s be honest, sweaty.

Willie Nicol: But so far with the mesh back it’s quite comfortable and there is kind of air circulating.

Willie Nicol: This does have arms because I find myself, when I’m talking to you, resting my elbows on the arms because I find it relaxing. The only thing is that this chair has a wider or deeper seat so I can’t get as close to my computer because of the width of the seat or the depth of the seat than I could before. Which means I’ve got to kind of move my monitor about so my glasses work. But apart from that there is …. I can tilt it back slightly and I can move it up and down. Do we need anything more than that?

David Logan: If you’ve got an office environment, you want one with wheels on so you can move from the spare part of the desk, the spare part of the desk where you’ve got documents. So you could have documents here, across here …. So you can move across easily and zoom back.

Willie Nicol: Zoom back, quite …

David Logan: But that depends on the type of carpet or flooring you have. If you’ve got solid flooring, brilliant. In this environment where I’m sitting right now, it’s my home office and I had it kitted out as an office environment. So I’ve got a hard-wearing office carpet in so the chair can turn. But I like, as you mentioned, you’ve got one that raises up and down because as you know I’m short in height so I like to get boosted up so I can see everybody.

Willie Nicol: Quite so. This one has five wheels actually same as my old one, right, I’m not sure we need five wheels, but anyway.

David Logan: Yeah, I’ve got the same.

Willie Nicol: Five wheels seems to be the norm because in my previous employment my computer chair in my office was one with five wheels always.

David Logan: The disadvantage about having wheels I can always remember when you said about your previous employment, previous office you worked in, I always remember when they had a bit of fun in the office, we used to have races on the chairs.

Willie Nicol: It must have been a big office.

David Logan: It was. That’s going back a number of years, but yeah it was good fun.

Willie Nicol: Well, the office I worked in was more like a cupboard really. It was about 8 foot by 6 foot so there was no racing done. Another thing that I considered was, as I said, the depth of the seat, the seat cushion like from the front to the back. This is a bit deeper, bigger than my old one and I’m conscious of that occasionally if I’ve not got it right that it digs into the backs of my legs so that is not a good thing ….

David Logan: No

Willie Nicol: …for a variety of reasons.

David Logan: Can you sit with your feet flat on the floor?

Willie Nicol: I am doing so right now.

David Logan: Good. Excellent. So, I think that’ll do us for this week. What do you think?

Willie Nicol: All I would add is I paid something like £75 for this chair so this is definitely in the budget side, right, because you can go up to literally thousands of pounds for really all singing, all dancing ones. But obviously money is money and I’m quite happy with this £75 one. Whether it’ll last as long as my other one which is God knows how old, remains to be seen.

Willie Nicol: So, thank you for that David. I hope that’s been useful for the viewer. If you’re going to be spending a lot of time at home, in a home office or wherever you are, make sure that you get a chair that’s going to support you, be comfortable but not too comfortable so you don’t fall asleep and does what you need it to do. And if you have an appropriate flooring, make sure it’s got wheels because you can also just wheel back and get to your cup of coffee which is on the desk behind you.

Willie Nicol: However, that’s it for this week David. Thank you very much for your contribution and thank you for the viewer for listening to me blethering on. So, all that remains for me to say is …. have a great week, stay safe, stay well and remember – have some fun. Goodbye from me.

David Logan: Before we go, if you want to find us, go to Google, my friend Google, and Willie’s, and search for “The Techno Dinosaur Meets The I.T. Geek”. Find the videos, find our YouTube channel, subscribe to it. Best of all, you can see us two having a good laugh.

David Logan: Thank you. Stay well, be healthy, have some fun as well. Cheerio for this week everybody, have a great week. Thank you.